Govt. to buy 5,000 ton from domestic sugar mills

The government is soon purchasing 5,000 tons of sugar from domestic sugar mills with a view to intervene soaring sugar prices in the market. The sugar price has skyrocketed as high as Rs. 90 per kg.

According to retailers the price of the sugar had gone up unexpectedly following the delay in procuring sugar from Brazil and Thailand. The government had already opened letter of credit to import 25,000 ton sugar from Brazil and 12,500 ton from Thailand. But, the product had not been delivered to Nepal so far mainly because of sugar price hike in international market too.

“Sugar is expected to arrive in Nepal by the end of January,” said Laxman Agrawal, general manager of National Trading Limited (NTL), one of the state-own organisations which is assigned the job of buying sugar from Brazil and Thailand. The government had directed the NTL and Salt Trading Corporation Limited to carry out the job of sugar import.

Ganesh Dhakal, spokesperson at the Ministry of Commerce and Supplies said that domestic mills had agreed to sell sugar to the government at the factory gate price of Rs. 65 per kg. “We will be soon buying the sugar from private sugar mills through the NTL and STC,” he said.

The government will buy the sugar at Rs. 65 per kg (excluding VAT and transportation cost) and release through NTL and STC outlets in the market at around Rs. 80 per kg.

Few months back the government had decided to import 50,000 ton of sugar from India, Brazil and Thailand at one percent customs duty to ease the supplies because of the low domestic production and production and soaring price.

According to ministry, the total demand of sugar stands around 170,000 ton annually and production has gone down to 70,000 ton due to the low production of sugarcane.