5 firms offer to import 33,000-tons sugar

MANILA, Philippines - Five companies submitted offers totaling 33,400 tons of sugar imports at a state auction yesterday, below the 45,100 tons volume the Philippines was seeking, government officials said.

But the government may award only 22,400 tons of sugar from the auction due to restrictions related to the end-users of the imports, one official said, adding the government may hold another tender at a later date for the remaining volume it failed to fill.

Cosmos Bottling Corp., Ginebra San Miguel, Asian Refreshments Corp., Harman Food and Gokongwei-owned Universal Robina Corp. submitted bids totaling 21,000 MT against an available allocation of 10,000 metric tons for industrial users. A second bidding for the importation of 45,100 metric tons attracted more participants with total bids reaching 33,400 metric tons.

The five participants included the URC which was bidding for other Gokongwei firms; San Fernando Eric Commercial which was bidding for other firms, All Asian Counter Trade which was bidding for Cosmos Bottling and Ginebra San Miguel; Go Tian Food Industry and Harman Foods Philippines, Inc. which was bidding also for Asian Refreshments Corp. and Harman Food.

According to Rosemarie S. Gumera, head of the planning department at the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) and vice-chairperson of the joint SRA-NFA (National Food Authority) bidding and allocation committee, a third auction may be held depending on a joint decision of the SRA-NFA BAC.

Gumera noted that industrial sugar users showed a lot more interest than the retailers.

Unfortunately, Gumera explained, because there are specific allocations the SRA-NFA Bac cannot just reallocate the unfilled amounts to the industrial users even though all of the submitted price bids were within the acceptable P150 to P160/ per 50 kilogram bags.

The SRA-NFA BAC will issue the notification for payment on Friday, April 23, while the notification of award would be on April 29.