SRA sees improvement in sugar prices

The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) expects improvement in sugar prices as it proceeds with auction of smuggled sugar from South Korea and Thailand and the onset of a new crop season.

Upon the request from the Bureau of Customs, the SRA recommended that the smuggled sugar seized at the ports of Manila and Cagayan De Oro City be sold and reclassified as B sugar, which is meant for domestic use.

"We recommended the floor price at 11,900.00 [per 50-kilo bag] and that those who will be allowed to participate in the auction should be the SRA-accredited local and international traders," SRA Board Member Roland Beltran said in a mobile phone message.

"The Sugar Board commends the BOC for seizing the smuggled sugar even as we encouraged the BOC to further intensify its efforts in curving unauthorized entry into the Country of imported Sugar," he added.

Based on SRA's estimates, the value of smuggled sugar seized in port of Manila stood around 142.75 million, while that in Cagayan De Oro would cost around 18.01 billion. A few shipments of imported high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) worth 13.5 million were also seized.

Last week, Customs District Collector Erastus Sandino Austria wrote SRA a letter saying "in order to generate revenue from non-traditional source and decongest the port,” the agency intends to immediately offer the illegal shipment to public auction.

"This refers to the shipment of 45x20 containers of approximately 1.12 million kilogram or 22,500 sacks of refined sugar that arrived at the Port of Manila on various dates from June 30 to July 21 from Thailand and has expiry date of February 6, 2020," Austria said.

Aside from this, Customs seized another 2,913 bags of 50kilos each from Thailand and 2,167 bags from Korea.

When asked if the smuggled sugar to be sold in the domestic market can help further stabilize prices, Beltran said "this is within the tolerable level of supply even as we are about to enter the new crop season for year 2018 to 2019."