The two ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and Trade (MoT) have recently concurred with a proposal made by the Vietnam Association of Sugar and Sugar Association to stop importing an additional 150,000 tons of sugar for the rest of this year.
The country currently has about 500,000 tons of sugar in stock, which can satisfy the domestic demand till the year-end, the MARD said.
According to the MARD, sugar refineries nationwide produced 904,200 tons of sugar during the 2005-2006 crop while demand was early this year reported at 1.2 million tons, causing an estimated shortfall of nearly 300,000 tons.
To surmount the shortage, the MoT had to grant licenses for sugar imports to satisfy domestic demand. Since the beginning of this year, the government has allowed businesses to import 86,000 tons of sugar.
Illegal imports, however, have to date reached 450,000 tons, adding to legal imports and the national inventory to create a huge surplus in the domestic market at the moment.
Further sugar imports, thus, will corner the domestic market, a MoT official said.
Analysts believed that around 100,000 tons of sugar is illegally slipped into Vietnam each month.
In related news, the MARD plans to expand sugarcane acreage to 290,000 ha in the 2006-2007 crop nationwide, yielding out an estimated output of 1.25 million tons of sugar in a bid to satisfy an increasingly demand for sugar in the coming time.
The revamped 2006-07 sugarcane production is slated for mid-September with the operation of 36 sugar plants nationwide.
B.T
Vietnamese
