KUALA LUMPUR: The direction of the local sugar industry and supply needs to be seen not only at the price of sugar in the local market, said Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Minister Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali.
He said other factors such as the stability of imported raw sugar supply and the sustainability of the local processed sugar supply industry chain should also be given attention.
What’s more, according to him, the country depends 100 per cent on the import of raw sugar for the domestic market.
“In the past few years, the world has been dealing with rising raw sugar prices and what is even more worrying is the risk of a global sugar supply shortage,“ he said in a post on his Facebook today.
He was commenting on his meeting with two local sugar manufacturers, namely MSM Malaysia Holdings Bhd (MSM) and Central Sugars Refinery (CSR), which was held at his ministry yesterday.
Armizan also cited a Business Mirror article which reported that the world’s largest sugar trader, Alvean predicted the world would face the sixth consecutive year of sugar supply deficit.
“It is predicted that the global market will experience a bigger sugar deficit of up to 5.4 million tonnes this year, compared to a deficit of 1 million tonnes last year.
“This is due to various factors including weather conditions which are not conducive to sugarcane cultivation, domestic issues in the main producing countries such as India and Thailand, as well as geo-political conflicts that caused a large reduction in sugar beet cultivation as one of the sources of sugar supply other than sugarcane, ” he said. – Bernama