A document that has since been deleted from the Sugar Regulatory Administration's website shows President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. approved 300,000 metric tons of sugar imports. Malacañang says he did not.
The Department of Agriculture and the SRA have yet to respond to queries regarding Malacañang’s denial. The document is also now unavailable on the SRA website.The SRA partly blames high sugar prices and lower sugar production on “residual effects” of Typhoon Odette , which struck in December 2021, and rainy weather in the past months.
The country’s estimated sugar production of 1.8 million metric tons is 200,000 metric tons short of the annual demand of 2.03 million metric tons observed in the past three years. The SRA tried to green-light 200,000 metric tons of imported refined and bottlers’ grade sugar for industrial users earlier in 2022 through Sugar Order No. 3. But in March, the move was blocked by legal action from local sugar producers who feared the importation of cheaper sugar would harm their businesses.
“If [Sugar Order No. 3] had been implemented according to schedule, we would have been able to address the demand of the manufacturers early on, prices would not be this high, and our raw sugar and refined sugar supply would not be at this critical volume,” SRA Administrator Hermenegildo Serafica said in a statement in late June.
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