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Bacolod: UNIFED urges PBBM to stop sugar importation

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Bacolod City – The United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines (UNIFED) is appealing to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to stop the move to import another 64,050 metric tons of sugar while sugar milling is at its peak.

UNIFED President Manuel Lamata said “we are at the peak of harvest and we have abundant stocks of raw and refined sugar, as such we see no need to import sugar at this time.”

Agriculture Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban, in his issued memorandum order No. 277, Series of 2022, dated December 20, said that based on the latest Summary Inflation Report of Consumer Price Index (2018-100), which was released Dec. 6, that the annual inflation increment for sugars, confectionary, and desserts has reached 38 percent.

Concerned with this very high inflation rate, Panganiban said that President Marcos Jr., the concurrent Secretary of Agriculture, ordered the Department to take action to stabilize sugar prices.

In this regard, Panganiban ordered Dr. Jocelyn Salvador, officer in charge executive director of the Minimum Access Volume (MAV) Secretariat, to immediately convene the MAV Advisory Council to expedite the importation of 64,050 metric tons of refined sugar.

Lamata said they are appealing to the President to halt the importation of refined sugar until the results of the post-assessment of sugar stocks after the end of the milling season can be conducted.

While they are not against importation per se, Lamata said “to do it now will be disastrous to our local sugar farmers.”

In the past three weeks, Lamata noted that mill gate prices of sugar have gone down, and if this further goes down with the entry of imported sugar, the sugar farmers will be facing a double whammy.” (Gilbert Bayoran via The Visayan Daily Star (TVDS), photo courtesy of TVDS)

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