TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Plan to change grading standard upsets local sugar producers
The Industry Ministry has set this year’s raw sugar import quota at 2.8 million tons, lower than 2018’s quota of 3.6 million tons.
Change Size
Workers watch a truck unload sugarcane at the PG Blora sugar mills in Blora, Central Java. (JP/Suherdjoko)
S
ugar producers and farmers have expressed their concern that the plan to modify color grading standards for imported raw sugar will result in an increase in the illegal sale of imported raw sugar in the domestic market.
Indonesia Sugar Association (AGI) advisor Yadi Yusriadi said the change in the color grading standard would make imported raw sugar look almost identical in color to locally-produced white crystal sugar, making it easier for culprits to “leak” it into the open market.
As a result, consumers would buy cheaper imported sugar instead of locally produced sugar, making it even harder for local producers and farmers to compete with cheaper imported sugar, Yadi said on Dec. 19.
Imported sugar should, instead, be used for industry, but importers often violate the regulation and sell the imported sugar in the open market.
“What we are concerned about, based on past experiences, is that not all imported raw sugar [at an ICUMSA of 600] will go to industries [for processing],” said Yadi, referring to conditions in 2003 when the standard was still set at 600.
The Industry Ministry’s foreign trade director general Indrasari Wisnu Wardhana told Reuters on Dec. 18 that the ministry was revising its color grading level, known as the International Commission for Uniform Methods of Sugar Analysis (ICUMSA), from 1200 to 600. The higher the number, the darker the color.
According to the 2008 Indonesia National Standard (SNI), imported raw sugar must have an ICUMSA purity level of at least 1,200. However, the Trade Ministry previously said sugar exporters from India had requested that the ministry change its provision as Indian producers no longer made ICUMSA-1,200 sugar.
