November 18, 2019
Jasper Y. Arcalas (Business Mirror) | https://bit.ly/2rRVGKN
Planters and other sugar industry stakeholders are targeting to craft a road map that will outline interventions for increasing annual output to meet all the requirements of the domestic market for the sweetener.
The blueprint is being crafted in view of the proposed liberalization of the sugar industry by the Duterte administration’s economic managers, according to Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) Board Member Emilio Yulo.
Yulo, who represents the planters’ sector at the SRA board, said stakeholders will craft the road map together with government officials and lawmakers.
“Our national domestic consumption is about 2.4 million metric tons to 2.6 MMT. We’re producing roughly 2 MMT and if we can increase our production by 10 percent every two years, in six years we will wipe out the shortage of about 400,000 metric tons to 600,000 MT,” Yulo told reporters in a recent interview.
One of the proposed solutions is to increase the yield of some 90 percent of the country’s sugar farmers, who produce only 30 MT to 40 MT per hectare, by 10 percent every two years.
Planters and millers said it is easier to increase the production of low-yielding farms than push big producers to churn out more sugar.
“If we reach 2.5 MMT to 2.6 MMT, we don’t have to talk about importation anymore. We will just have to talk about pricing,” said Dave Alba, member of sugar industry group Tatak Kalamay.
Yulo said a multisectoral Sugar Summit will be held in February 2020, where the blueprint will be discussed. After the summit, the road map will be presented to government officials and lawmakers.
Stakeholders said they will seek funds for the implementation of strategies under the blueprint starting crop year 2020 to 2021 by end-August next year, Yulo added.
“We hope to come up with a consolidated plan. We will take a look at productivity, efficiency,” he said.
“We want short-term, medium-term and long-term solutions with the end view of at least being in parity with our Asean neighbors because that’s always the benchmark used against Philippine sugar,” Yulo added.
Last month, the BusinessMirror reported that economic managers have agreed to shelve plans to ease restrictions on sugar imports for now, as they will focus instead on slashing the domestic price of the sweetener.
“We will not liberalize the sugar industry yet [as] we will give time to doing something about the very high prices of sugar here,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia told the BusinessMirror in an ambush interview last October 23.
Asked until when the economic team will stick to this stance, Pernia said: “We will observe it [sugar industry] for six months to one year.”
Pernia issued his statement almost a month after the Department of Finance formally proposed the liberalization of the sugar trade industry.
The DOF had wanted to replace quantitative restrictions with tariffs and safeguard measures (for subsidized products) “to allow for more transparent, competitive pricing, and allow downstream industries to become more viable and grow as fast” as their counterparts in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.