KARACHI, Jan 12: The sugar industry is seeking its involvement in import of raw sugar to prevent its sale in the open market without being further processed and refined by trade.

The industry strongly feels that since some of its units could not run for full season owing to sugarcane shortage, it would have also helped the industry to keep its boilers running and provide employment.

The import of raw sugar is specifically meant for reprocessing into refined quality for consumption safeguards, and to overcome shortage of sugarcane, if managed through the representative body of mill owners -- the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association -- the commodity could be allocated to those mills that had been markedly exposed to sugarcane shortage.

In a communication to the government, the PSMA (Sindh-Zone) expressed its dismay over the decision by the ECC of the cabinet (December 30, 2004) to allow import of 200,000 tons of raw sugar.

The association also expressed its anxiety and displeasure for not taking the PSMA into confidence or consultation prior to taking such an important decision which was directly related to the industry.

"The decision was not properly planned as was evident from the fact that with a gap of tow days the government asked the State Bank to work out mechanism for import and soon thereafter central excise duty and customs duty were also withdrawn on import of raw sugar," the PSMA asserted.

All these decisions, the association noted, were taken without consulting the millers which showed a major policy flaw and would hurt the interest of real stakeholders, including sugar mills. It would have been in the best interest of all the stakeholders had the government involved the sugar industry in import raw sugar.

By involving the industry the entire system would have remained transparent, equitable and within reasonable limit for quantity, quality and timely processing. Above all, those sugar mills which suffered cane shortage would have benefited the most to meet their processing activity.

The PSMA said the industry could have gone a step further in this regard by exporting refined sugar on import of raw sugar that could have contributed towards earning of forex, provision of employment and enhancement of DGP.