ISLAMABAD, Dec 20: The sugar mills in Sindh on Tuesday indicated that they would resume sugarcane crushing in this week following government assurance to link sugarcane prices with sugar contents, a senior government official told Dawn.

The representatives of the sugar mills, sugarcane growers and other stakeholders held a meeting with Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Sikandar Hayat Bosan, in Karachi on Tuesday, in which the mill owners indicated that they would start crushing this week, Sugarcane Commissioner, Inayatullah Khan told Dawn on telephone from Karachi where he also attended the meeting.

He said the stakeholders agreed to hold another meeting in Islamabad on price mechanism of sugarcane within two or three days, Mr Khan said.

He said that the meeting was held in a good environment. He said the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) had acknowledged the problems the growers were facing due to closure of sugar mills in Sindh.

The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) has suggested minimum price of sugarcane between Rs60 to Rs70 per 40 kg. The PSMA Sindh Chapter had rejected the price of Rs60 per 40 kg proposed by the Sindh government a few days ago.

Mr Bosan had informed the PSMA that the government would work out mutually agreed price mechanism and this would link to the sugar price contents currently prevailing in the market.

This has been a major demand of PSMA, which was almost accepted by the government, an official of the PSMA said. He said that PSMA would hold another meeting with the minister and he hoped that the sugar mills would resume crushing by the end of this week.