Pakistan is likely to issue a second sugar import tender of 100,000 tonnes in August, but will keep a ban on purchases from India, government officials said on Friday. The Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP), which bought 100,000 tonnes of white sugar last week from a United Arab Emirates-based firm, has asked the government to set the second tender.
"We need more imports and have asked the government to decide terms and conditions for purchases immediately," TCP Chairman Masood Alam Rizvi told Reuters.
A senior official at Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) said private traders had finalised deals to buy nearly one million tonnes of raw sugar since January, which includes 684,000 tonnes of refined and 354,000 tonnes of raw.
"Traders are still in the market...they are finalising deals for September/October shipments," the official said. Pakistani traders hope the government will relax a four-year-old ban on sugar imports from India. But Commerce Ministry Secretary Tasneem Noorani said those hopes were premature.
"We will discuss our trade relations on August 9, but the discussion would not be specific to any commodity... The sugar or wheat import issue will not be discussed in the meeting," he said. "Those commodities are banned and will remain banned."