Jakarta, Sept 11 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian government has decided to import 180,000 tons of raw sugar in an effort to increase its sugar stocks and to secure sugar supplies in the country in the first five months of 2010.
The government's decision to import sugar came up amid hope that sugar cane farmers at home should be protected from imported sugar. Vice President Jusuf Kalla had stated on several occasions that the government would close the sugar import pipeline this year in an effort to protect sugar cane farmers.
After all, the government has previously stressed that there was no sugar scarcity because sugar stocks still reached six million tons while national sugar consumption reached only 4.9 million tons.
However, the government came up later with a quiet decision to import sugar as based on its calculations stocks could run short in the first months of 2010. The planned sugar import to be done in the near future is intended as a stock for the first five months of 2010.
"It seems that in our calculations we still need to increase our sugar imports to raise sugar stock allocation in the first five months of 2010," the deputy to the chief economic minister for agricultural affairs, Bayu Krisnamurthi, said.
A number of analysts have predicted that sugar price during the five-month period would still experience turmoil. At the same time, Indonesia is not producing sugar because it is not a milling season.
The safe volume of sugar in the first months of 2010 is about 1 million tons while the sugar stock at the end of 2009 is estimated at below one million tons. "With a minimum scenario, we would not reach the minimum sugar stock of one million tons because we restricted sugar import in 2009. We stopped sugar imports while prices showed an upward trend," he added.
He said that Indonesia experienced low sugar price at the end of 2007 and early in 2008, while its stocks early in 2008 reached 1.2 million tons.
Previously, Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said that Indonesia needed 180,000 tons of imported sugar. Thus, the government decides to give an allocation of additional raw sugar import of 180,000 tons to secure sugar stock.
"We are giving a raw sugar permit for 180,000 tons for sugarmills to boost their production for adequate year-end stocks in the event of unmilled sugar," Minister of Trade, Mari Elka Pangestu said.
She said the import will be carried out prior to the end of the milling season in November, because it is aimed at covering the sugarmills idle capacity. The measure was taken to secure a stock of five months before next year's milling season.
"Right now the stock is still enough, otherwise we would have to make adjustments by raw sugar imports like what we are doing now," the trade minister said. She said that the additional import quota was small because it was only intended to maintain the balance between production and consumption.
State enterprise Minister Sofyan Djalil said recently national sugar stocks now stood at 200,000 tons of which 70 percent belonged to state plantation firm PTPN and the remaining 30 percent were owned by farmers.
But according to Corporate Secretary of PTPN XI Adig Suwandi, in the current 2009 milling season, the national sugar production of 60 factories is estimated at 2.7 million tons, while the need for sugar for direct consumption reached 2.6 million tons.
The sugar import allocation for this year is 1.6 million tons. "Thus, the volume of the planned import of 180,000 tons of sugar for next year stocks is small because it is intended an adjustment between the volume of production and the need for domestic consumption," Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said.
In the meantime, the ministry of trade's domestic trade director general Diah Maulida said the distribution of the raw sugar import allocation of 180,000 tons will be carried out by the ministry of agriculture. Diah said although the import allocation is already available, the ministry of trade has yet to issue the import licenses.
This year, the government is allocating raw sugar imports for refined sugar industries 1.6 million tons, and the import of 380,000 tons of refined sugar. "The import of refined sugar by the food and beverages industries has now reached only 90,000 tons, " Diah said.
In the meantime, it was reported that some 3,000 tons of sugar had entered the country via Batam. Vice President Jusuf Kalla said he had no knowledge about the imported sugar which had reportedly entered the country through Batam. "I don't know about it (the sugar import)," the vice president told reporters after Friday prayers.
The government has quietly issued a license for the importation of 3,000 tons of sugar through the Island of Batam. The vice president has stressed on several occasions that the government would close the sugar import pipeline this year in an effort to protect sugar cane farmers at home.***2*** (T.A014/A/HAJM/18:55/a014) (T.A014/A/A014/A/A014) 11-09-2009 19:11:00 |
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