Mills delay crushing season until end of sugar stocks.

LAHORE -- Sugar millers have announced not to begin sugarcane crushing season this year until the stocks of the sweetener from last year are exhausted.

A general body meeting of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (Centre) held under the chair of its chairman Asim Ghani Usman and attended by members from Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It was unanimously decided in the meeting that the sugar mills would not start crushing season until the government allowed them to export the surplus sugar.

In a statement, a PSMA spokesman said the sugar mills had ample stocks till Jan 15, 2023 and the industry was left with only two options-to delay the National Food Security and Research Minister Tariq Bashir Cheema has, however, ruled out the export option fearing it may make the sweetener costlier in the local market.

'I believe that the sugar rate in the local market will go up within two months of the export permission as the country doesn't hold as much sugar...