LAHORE: The price of sugar touched the highest-ever level of Rs 101 per kilogramme, with a 50 kg sugar bag being sold for Rs 5,050 in the province’s largest wholesale market, Akbari Market, on Saturday.
Price lists showed that the price of white sugar had registered a sharp increase of Rs 11 per kg in the last five days. Data showed that due to the absence of price control, sugar prices increased by Rs 26 per kg since October 1, more than 35 percent in a single month.
Sugar traders accuse mill owners of jacking up the price. Experts estimate that the country has sufficient sugar stocks to meet domestic demand for four months. Agri Forum Pakistan Chairman Ibrahim Mughal said sugar price hike was an administrative problem.
He said the TCP had imported sugar at Rs 80 per kilogramme and it had over 400,000 tonnes of sugar stocks, while the domestic need was around 150,000 tonnes. He believed that the price of the sweetener could fall in a couple of days if the TCP started offloading the commodity at the purchase price.
Mughal said the price hike was a failure of the provincial and federal governments, as both had failed to control the price and had not started the sugarcane crushing season.
