KARACHI: Rising whole­­­sale prices have pushed up the retail sugar price to Rs150-165 per kilogram due to a lack of vigilance on hoarding and black marketing of sweetener.

Retailers are demanding Rs150 per kg, while many online grocery websites, marts, and superstores have tagged the retail prices at Rs155-165 per kg.

Chairman of Karachi Wholesalers Grocers Asso­ciation Rauf Ibrahim said that the wholesale price has increased by Rs8 per kg in the last one to two days to Rs143 per kg, while it was Rs131-132 in the first week of July.

As per the data of the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), the national average price in the country has risen to 135-160 per kg during the last week, which was Rs125-140 per kg in the first week of July and was selling at Rs87-100 per kg in the first week of January 2023.

Sector posts record-high earnings amid rising prices, volumes

He said there was no writ of the government in dealing with skyrocketing sugar prices, and no serious steps had been taken to control black marketing and hoarding by market forces and sugar mills, who continue to jack up prices at their whims.

In the last week of July, the Punjab government took some measures, including confiscating sugar that was stocked for black marketing purposes, while the government would sell the recovered sugar from the stockists and put the money into the national exchequer.

Additionally, the Punjab government would register cases against the sugar millers and market traders for speculation, while granting the cane commissioner the power to fix the rate and regulate the storage, transport, or distribution of sugar.

He said there were hardly any practical steps taken by the federal and provincial governments to reduce the sugar rates. He added that he did not know how much sugar stocks had been recovered from the markets and sugar millers, which were piled up to make windfalls.

Sugar profit

Sunny Kumar of Top Line Securities said that after many years, the sugar sector’s profits are showing signs of strong growth. Listed sugar sector’s earnings were up 23pc year-on-year to record high of Rs14 billion in the first nine months of FY23 (Oct-2022 to Jun-2023) due to rise in sugar volumes and prices.

Net sales of the sector jumped 25pc YoY to Rs235bn in 9MFY23 due to the export of 216,000 tonnes from February to June 2023 fetching $104 million. The government had allowed export of 250,000 tonnes of sugar during January 2023 till June 2023.

International sugar prices have also risen by 31pc from $17.42 cts/Ib in Oct-2022 to $22.89 cts/Ib in June 2023. Currently it is at $24.37 cts/Ib.

As per data of Large-Scale Manufacturing, sugar production during 11MFY23 fell by 15pc to 6.7m tonnes from 7.907m tonnes in the same period last fiscal year.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2023