THE Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) on Thursday said it may realign world market sugar allocation to the United States for the current crop year with millers reporting lower-than-expected sugarcane harvest.
Rosemarie Gumera, SRA policy and planning manager, said they are now looking at making adjustments with sugar allocation after reports from farmers and millers that the volume of sugarcane harvests have decreased compared to last year
“The SRA is now validating the information as a decrease in production will likely trigger a change in sugar allocation,” Gumera said.
“There is less tons of cane harvested per hectare. It was also observed that canes are shorter and smaller. Despite the higher sugar recovery than last year, it may not compensate for the decrease in tonnage,” she added.
Figures indicated that the national sugar stock still continues to decrease as demand or withdrawal is still higher than production.
But the SRA expects that any adjustments in sugar allocation will not affect US quota for 2011-2012 crop year as the latter may even shift a significant volume of its sweetener requirements to the Philippines.
“The US sugar quota is a commitment while world market is an open one . . . maybe the allocation adjustments is in the world market, but still we are in the process of validating field reports for the sugar board to decide on policy adjustments,” she said.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) earlier said it will allow the Philippines to export at least 144,901 metric tons (MT) of raw cane sugar, refined and specialty sugar, and sugar-containing products under the country-specific in-quota allocations for fiscal year 2012.
Meanwhile, a unit of the USDA said it expects sugar exports from the Philippines to more than double to 445,000 MT in the crop year that started September 1.
It said the higher sugar quota to the Philippines for next year in response to the tight supply of the sweetener in the US market.
On the other hand, the Philippines expects to export more than 28 percent of its total sugar production as production surplus of the sweetener is expected to extend this coming 2011-2012 crop year. Ma. Regina Bautista-Martin, SRA administrator, said that they expect to export more than 670,000 tons of raw sugar to the United States and other markets for the crop year ending August 2012.
The SRA expects sugar production to reach 2.4 million metric tons for the 2011-2012 crop year. Of the volume, 20 percent, or 480,000 MT, will be allocated to the world market; while 8 percent or 192,000 MT of “A” classified sugar will go to the US.
As of August 28, the country’s sugar production reached 2.399 million MT, or 21.73 percent higher than the 1.970 million MT in the previous year. It is also higher than the previous forecast of 1.96 million MT for the crop year ending August 2011.
