ISLAMABAD: Pakistani sugar mills will start crushing cane from the new crop by next week, a top industry official said on Tuesday, but the country will still need imports to meet domestic needs.

Pakistan is expecting 3.5 million tonnes of refined sugar from the 2009/10 crop as against annual domestic requirements of four — 4.2 million tonnes.

All mills in the southern province of Sindh will be crushing by the middle of the month, said Abdul Wajid, chairman of the Sindh chapter of the private Pakistan Sugar Mills Association, which handles the bulk of the commodity.

‘Two or three mills have already lit their boilers and the rest will be following suit and crushing will start by November 12 or so,’ Wajid told Reuters.

Of a total 82 mills, 32 are in Sindh and 44 are in Punjab province, which will start crushing in the last week of the month or in the first week of December, industry officials said. Six mills are in North West Frontier Province.

Wajid expected Sindh province to produce up to 800,000 tonnes of refined sugar, down from an average 1.2 million tonnes a year, mainly because of low yield and a cut in the area under sugar.

With no or very little carry-over stocks, millers have proposed that the government imports raw sugar for meeting domestic needs and to replenish buffer stocks.

‘We have told the government to import 700,000 to 800,000 tonnes of raw sugar, otherwise they will be in trouble again,’ he said.

Pakistan produced 3.2 million tonnes of refined sugar from the previous crop, according to estimates from millers, and the country this year imported 225,000 tonnes of refined sugar to meet demand and keep prices in check after the government ignored millers’ advise to import raw sugar.

For the new season, the government has already announced plans to import 300,000 tonnes of raw sugar, although food ministry officials said last month the plan was to import up to one million tonnes in coming months.

Wajid said raw sugar had to come within weeks so it could be processed along with the domestic crop this crushing season, which usually lasts until the first week of March.

Despite the import of refined sugar this year, Pakistanis have faced shortages since last month when the Supreme Court ordered millers to sell sugar at 40 rupees/kg, compared with the then market price of about 46 rupees/kg.

Government attempts to implement the court decision have led to confusion in the market, with even higher free-market prices of the sweetener.— Reuters