Alarm bells ring for sugar industry as cheap imports and HFCS flood market

The proliferation of cheap, imported refined sugar and soda sweeteners in the Philippine market is a threat to the industry and may disrupt jobs, stakeholders said Friday. 

 

The Sugar Masterplan Foundation Inc. (SMFI), citing Bureau Customs data, noted a 24.11-percent increase in the volume of imported refined sugar to 26,453 metric tons (MT) in 2012 from 2011. 

 

In a statement, the group of cane growers also revealed that 52,631.10 MT of high fructose corn syrup or HFCS – a softdrink sweetener – landed in the country during the first 11 months of 2012.  “This is equivalent to 526,311 bags (50 kg per bag) of sugar displacing an estimated 3,333 farmers in 2012,” it said.

  

“These imports have a detrimental effect on the income of rural families in the countryside whose only source of livelihood is sugarcane farming,” SMPF executive director Felixberto Monasterio noted in the statement.

 

SMFP expects a spike in imported sugar this year, with the tariffs in ASEAN dropping to 18 percent from 28 percent ahead of  the single-market agreement to be implemented in 2015. “Unfortunately, Filipino farmers face this stiffer competition while their neighboring competitor farmers, primarily from Thailand, continues to receive substantial government support despite common elimination of tariff,” according to the group.

 

There should be government-instituted measures ahead of the 2015 trade liberalization under the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, SMFP urged and asked for the development of alternative markets for sugar and uses of sugarcane. — VS, GMA News