KARACHI, Oct 10: The government is contemplating steps to restrict sugar imports, including a proposal to raise import duty, a senior agriculture ministry official said on Tuesday.

“We are making efforts to restrict imports and an import duty could be levied on refined and raw sugar,” Ismail Qureshi, secretary, ministry of agriculture and livestock, told Reuters.

He said a final decision on import duty and its level would be taken by the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet.

“The ministry feels that there is some room to increase import duties or impose some restriction on imported sugar,” Mr Qureshi said, without elaborating.

However, another senior official at the agriculture ministry said the government had decided to levy a 15pc import duty on sugar to settle a dispute with the mill owners which had led to delay in sugar production this season.“A 15pc import duty on raw and refined sugar is almost decided and I think it will be announced before the start of the crushing in November,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

“The decision was taken after the industry had made representations against imports urging the government to increase the import duty,” he added. Mill owners had refused to start crushing the cane crop to protest over the government's refusal to increase import duty.

The sugar industry said Pakistan currently had sufficient sugar stocks to meet demand within the country, and cheap imports, especially from India should be banned. But officials said the government had turned down the demand.

“The government has refused to impose a ban on Indian sugar but it has agreed to impose some tough conditions to discourage import from India,” another farm ministry official said.

In February last year Pakistan removed the import duty on sugar to overcome shortages after a crop of 44 million tons of cane yielded 2.6 million tons of sugar, resulting in a 1.3 million tons shortfall in the domestic market.

Industry officials said there was no shortage of sugar in Pakistan as stocks exceeded 1.65m tons of carryover stocks from the last production cycle. The country's sugar production is expected at up to 3.5m tons in the coming production season.—Reuters