November 8, 2002	Friday	Ramazan 2,1423

LAHORE, Nov 7: The performance of the sugar industry which remained bleak during the last couple of years, has picked up now and is showing signs of recovery.

According to a study conducted by LCCI, sugar production is likely to exceed over 3m tons this year. The production in the Punjab province will rise by 40 per cent due to increase in the area under crop, yield and sucrose recovery rate, owing to better availability of water this time.

With the total estimated production of 3.2m tons, after local consumption of 3.1m tons, about 100,000 tons will be left surplus, bringing the total surplus sugar in the country to around 500,000 tons.

The study suggested that Pakistan should be a regular sugar exporting country that would offload its surplus stock and stabilize the prices of this commodity in the domestic market.

The government should also provide subsidy to export surplus production, or a cross subsidy be worked out where the local prices are kept high and the surplus is exported at prevailing international price without government subsidy.

Citing politicians’ influence over the support price as one of the major problems of the sugar industry, the report claimed that this was an outcome of the entry of politicians in the sugarcane and sugar business, and vice versa.

Politicians who are basically farmers have been influencing sugarcane prices without realizing that any increase would benefit them only in the thousands, but will cost the industry in millions and billions of rupees.—APP