KARACHI, April 13: Sugar production is heading to hit a three-year high level of well over three million tons but the unsold stocks are piling up with the crushers because of a considerable decline both in private and public sector lifting.

“With most of the six dozen odd mills being still in the production process, the total production is expected to match the previous record figure of 3.3m tons,” a Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) member predicted.

According to latest fortnightly production report released by the PSMA upto March 31, 2.906 million tons of white refined sugar had been produced showing an increase of 0.154 million tons over corresponding period last year when production stood at 2.751 million tons.

The mills produced 2.891 million tons on crushing cane and 14,801 tons from raw sugar.

The slow offtake of white refined sugar has resulted in piling up of 1.854 million tons of unsold stocks with the mills. During the period under review around 1.052 million tons have been sold by the mills.

A spokesman of the PSMA said that main factor for huge unsold stocks lying with mills is the carry-over stocks of last year resulted out of unbridled imports owing to wrong government policy.

He further said that the unsold stocks have virtually strapped the mills of liquid cash as billions of rupees have been blocked in the inventory.

The PSMA figures disclose that about three dozen sugar mills in Punjab are still in the production process where upto March 31, 2002, 1.853 million tons have been produced as against 1.532 million tons in the corresponding period of last year.

However, the lifting of sugar remained slow at 38.96 per cent to production volume whereas last year it was 44.28 per cent. The mills are holding around 1.131m tons of unsold stocks in Punjab compared to 854,408 tons in the same period last year.

Nevertheless, there is a sharp fall in sugar production in the province of Sindh where 955,520 tons have been produced upto March 31 as against 1.153 million tons in the corresponding period last year. However, over two dozen mills are still under production process in Sindh.

The offtake of refined white sugar in Sindh also remained slow at 29.89 per cent as against 44.73 per cent in the same period last year.

In NWFP around half a dozen mills seem to have made better performance. They produced around 97,234 tons compared to 65,711 tons in the same period last year. The offtake of the produce also indicated remarkable rise at 45.56 per cent, from 20.17 per cent of last year.