2 weeks Ago By Fawad Yousafzai
ISLAMABAD - The Prime Minister’s Committee on Sugar Wednesday directed the departments concerned to develop Medium term Framework for Deregularization of Sugar Industry within 10 days. The Prime Minister’s Committee on Sugar, which met here with Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal in the chair, discussed stocking, pricing and future trajectory for development of sugar industry. Prime Minister of Pakistan had constituted Committee on Sugar stocking, Forecasting and Planning in December last year to develop a foolproof system of monitoring and report authentic position of sugar stocks for timely decisions on exports.
Other ministers in attendance were Minister for Industries and Production Rana Tanvir Hussain, and Minister of State for Finance Ali Parvez Malik. Senior member of Pakistan Sugar Mills Association briefed the minister that in the previous years, availability of acquiring accurate data had been a persistent problem for the association. He acknowledged the role of FBR as it worked with Sugar Mills Association last year for the first time to review data.
He suggested taking data from one source to maintain accuracy. Senate panel discusses voting rights for overseas Pakistanis The representative also said that due to most sugar mills not providing data on time, correct and uniform figures are not reported. “Technically sugar prices should decrease after every successful export but by providing protection to consumers, the sugar mills have been paralyzed financially.
” Pakistan Sugar Mills Association also suggested fixing a date to review 12 months’ performance of mills. Lauding government efforts to stop sugar smuggling, he said that the government had maintained an effective track and trace system to stop smuggling. Addressing the meeting, planning minister said that it is imperative for all institutes of government to maintain effective coordination.
He also advised the stakeholders to establish coordination with SUPARCO for satellite based data gathering. Stating the importance of data uniformity and accuracy, the minister said, “The problem of data variance should be solved as soon as possible by involving experts and researchers to ensure that data sets used by all institutes are unified.” The planning minister further gave directions to ministries concerned to prepare a medium term framework for development of agriculture industry.
“The planning ministry developed a cluster based agriculture report under Vision 2025 in 2017-18 which was completed in 2020 with an aim to produce analytical insights for agriculture policy making and the sugar industry cluster was examined thoroughly.” Shafqat Ali made new FO spokesperson Quoting the examples of competitive sugar mills across the world, he said that the world’s most productive mills have effective recovery rates but Pakistan’s sugar mills are inefficient in terms of recovery rates. Ahsan Iqbal said that the three most important targets for the sugar industry should be recovering more sugar, producing surplus sugar and exporting surplus to other countries.
“By making a medium term policy for government to deregularize the sugar industry, the next 10 years can be spent following the planned vision,” the minister said, directing the meeting participants to make a committee for achieving the task. As suggested by the minister, the committee would be chaired by chief statistical officer and must include representatives from Ministry of industries, FBR, Pakistan Sugar Mills association and SUPARCO. He directed the relevant ministries to prepare a 15 days report.
The minister stressed, “Planning Ministry is dedicated to facilitate active forecasting and ensure strategic decision making to promote the development and deregularization of sugar industry.” IHC grants bail to Rs3.2b tax fraud co-accused against Rs100 surety bond Referring to the weak link between production and productivity, the minister stated that Pakistan is the fifth largest sugar producer in the world but in terms of yield, its ranking is alarmingly low.
The minister also urged maximizing the agricultural portfolio of Pakistan through crop zoning. “Whether it is edible oil, wheat, cotton or sugar sector that needs to be made self-sufficient, crop zoning can help local governments to designate areas of land for farming and protect them from incompatible land uses. He also said that backward integration can help the sugar industries achieve faster growth as evident from the success of FMCGs that follow backward integration.
Pakistan’s ranking in the bottom one third countries of the world in terms of productivity yield can be used as a motivating factor for implementing better policies, he emphasized. “A medium term master plan should cover at least 10 years and provide a vision regarding how much productivity is expected to gain from a specified area of land.” The minister asserted that the industrial sector must get beyond production obsession and ensure backward integration, assuring the industrial stakeholders that their problems will be solved on priority.
He also affirmed government’s commitment to balance the need to support domestic sugar producers with ensuring adequate supply and stable prices for local consumers. PM chairs SIFC apex committee meeting today Tags: committee developing medium term.
