The importing of 50,000 metric tons of sugar now is designed to temper the high retail prices of sugar, Sugar Regulatory Administrator James Ledesma said yesterday.

This was his answer yesterday to a text message that asked: "Why deprive sugar producers of good prices now by allowing James Ledesma to import expensive sugar? He's not protecting planters, he's sabotaging them."

The cost of importing refined sugar is still lower than current prices. Current levels are just too high with refined sugar retail prices at P40 a kilo which is P2,000 per bag, Ledesma said.

"Imports are designed to temper this. Maybe we can land imported sugar at P1,650 refined, which should become the floor equal to about around P1,200 quedan raw," he said.

"Is this good enough already. It is not good to be too greedy," he said.

Ledesma said his mandate is to balance the price between producers and consumers. "We should not look at today only but long term. This high price regime may be with us for quite some time, so we need to manage it well and that's also servicing our market."*PE

back to top