Member of Parliament’s Agricultural Commission, Mohamamd-Mehdi Boroumandi on Sunday criticized the excessive imports of sugar, warning about multiple difficulties faced by sugarcane farmers and domestic sugar manufacturers.
Faced with difficulties in selling their products due to oversupply of imported sugar, domestic sugar and sugar cube manufacturers have been unable to pay their debts to banks and farmers over the past several months, warned Boroumandi, who criticized the ministry of industry, mine and trade for permitting excessive sugar imports despite the ban imposed by the agricultural ministry, IRNA reported.
“As per the Secession Ordinance previously passed by the parliament, the task to regulate sugar imports was handed over from the ministry of industry, mine and trade to the agricultural ministry but the industry ministry does not pay heed to this resolution,” said the parliament member.
A resolution passed by the Economy Council in 2014 authorized the sugar factories to exclusively import sugar in proportion to their production in a move aimed at enabling sugar manufacturers to regulate the market and compensate the price difference between domestic and imported sugar. This is while according to the lawmaker, major sugar importers are dealers not directly involved in the sugar industry.
Meanwhile, head of internal trade and distribution services of Iran chamber of commerce, Khosrow Forughan Geransayeh on Monday announced a ban on sugar imports until the end of sugarcane harvesting season which falls in January next year, in a move to protect the domestic sugar manufacturers, ISNA reported.
Observing that 1.3 million metric tons of sugar is currently in warehouses across the country, Geransayeh predicted that a similar quantity will be produced during the current year’s production period which will begin in September.
