PM Imran Khan felicitates his team: Sugar price down from Rs102 to Rs81/kg during a month
LAHORE: Prime Minister Imran Khan Saturday greeted his team for bringing sugar price down from Rs102/kg to Rs81/kg through a multi-pronged strategy.
He tweeted, “MashaAllah sugar is selling at a national average of Rs81 per kg vs. Rs102 per kg a month back.
“I want to congratulate my team for bringing the sugar price down through a multi-pronged strategy.”
In the past month, despite prime minister’s wish to regulate prices of wheat, flour and sugar, the rates had remained high this year.
In the case of wheat and flour , the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported a discount in prices on a monthly basis, but the rates remained higher on a yearly basis. The federal government’s decision to import and export wheat and sugar had an immediate pertaining to the costs within the domestic market.
The PBS reported that wheat prices increased 36.6% in November over an equivalent month a year ago in urban areas and 37.9% in rural areas. Prices of flour rose 19.6% in rural areas.
Also, sugar prices increased 35.8% in November in cities and 42.5% in villages over a year ago, consistent with the national data collecting agency.
In the meanwhile, thanks to very high sugar price, powerful sugar manufacturers deprived consumers of billions of rupees within the first month into the present crushing season.
On the idea of Rs200-215 per 40kg price of sugarcane, the ex-mill rate of sugar should are around Rs55-60 per kg. However, with opening ex-mill price of Rs95 plus per kg in early November, the typical ex-mill price within the ensuing month stood at over Rs80 per kg, which was a minimum of Rs20 per kg more if compared with sugarcane price parity.
The ex-factory sugar price was hovering around just Rs65 per kg in November-December 2019 despite sugarcane procurement price of Rs250 per 40 kg.
According to an analysis, administered by The News, the sugar price should are much less than Rs81 per kg, over which the premier expressed his joy on Saturday. Since the primary week of November this year when the crushing started within the country, the typical ex-mill price of sugar stood at around Rs80 per kg. With the countrywide monthly consumption calculated at 450,000 tons, influential sugar mill owners deprived consumers of nearly Rs10 billion on the idea of around Rs55-60 per kg all-inclusive cost .
Even at this ex-mill price of Rs70 per kg, the sugar mill owners still make hefty profit of Rs10-15 per kg.
Punjab Industries Minister Mian Aslam Iqbal said that price fixation at manufacturing stage was a prerogative of the Centre, as per decision taken by the federal .
Federal Minister for Industries & Production Hammad Azhar, who was tasked to see ex-mill sugar price, did nothing for curbing inflated opening rate, fixed by the sugar mill owners. Despite several attempts, he didn't answer the queries sent to him by the correspondent about failure of his ministry to manage the sugar prices.
However, he did clarify the difficulty at microblogging site. “The ex-mill and retail rates of sugar are down by approximately Rs30/kg within the last one month. Competitive sugar import by the govt , its supply at controlled rates and timely start of the crushing season provided relief to both consumers and farmers,” he tweeted on Saturday.
When contacted, Chaudhry Muhammad Waheed, executive member of Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA), said ex-factory price of sugar had come right down to Rs70-72 within the market. The opening ex-mill price of sugar was high thanks to low sucrose recovery of about 7% at the beginning of season and Rs230 per maund rate of sugarcane, he claimed.
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