Pakistan issues international tender to export 107,739 tonnes of sugar imported last year

Profit by Pakistan Today reported, citing European traders, that the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) has floated a global call for bids on 107,739 tonnes of refined white sugar. Offers are due by September 28, and the lot comes from sugar imported last year. The sale follows approval on August 20 by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), which earlier cleared a plan to seek bids on 108,000 tonnes of excess sugar.

What is left of a 300,000-tonne import recommended last year by the Steering Committee on Sugar is now being offered. The sale will be carried out under the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority Rules, 2004. The tender comes as the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) keeps urging the government to allow exports, arguing that excess stocks and weak prices strain mills and cane growers.

PSMA's third letter, sent on August 13 to National Food Security and Research Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain, warned of a liquidity squeeze before the next crushing season. Its figures put stocks at 3.171 million tonnes on July 31, and it estimated that 1.974 million tonnes would cover demand until November 15. It projects that about 1.197 million tonnes could remain when crushing begins, and wants exports allowed to ease the excess. Unlike the wider industry stock, the TCP tender covers only government-held sugar imported earlier.