MANILA, Philippines - The sugar industries of Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines have agreed in principle to form an ASEAN Sugar Alliance (ASA) to strengthen their respective industries for the regional economic integration by 2015, according to the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA).
SRA administrator Ma. Regina Martin said the alliance provides for information and technology transfer with the goal of increasing the current local sugar production level of 50 to 60 tons per hectare to around 80 to 90 tons per hectare.
“We are hopeful for an exchange of technology and research in developing our sugar industry from both mill and field production improvement,” said Martin.
Thailand is currently the largest producer and exporter of sugar in the region while Indonesia is the largest consumer and importer.
The alliance will focus on the uses of sugarcane as a raw material for food and fuel.
The ASEAN region, which has a population of almost 600 million, produces around 17 million tons of sugar and consumes about 14 million tons of sugar annually. The consuming ratio per person is around 23 kilograms per year, according to the International Sugar Organization (ISO).
The SRA has set a sugar production target of 2.356 million metric tons (MT) for crop year 2012 -2013, up five percent from the total raw sugar production volume of 2.243 MMT for crop year 2011-2012.
Sugar milling for crop year 2012-2013 started last Sept. 1 and will end in October next year.
Martin earlier said that the target production for crop year 2012 to 2013 may still be revised depending on weather patterns in the following months.
Considering the supply and demand scenarios for the United States, domestic and world markets, the Sugar Board promulgated the following allocations: ‘A” or US sugar, 10 percent; “B” or domestic sugar, 82 percent; “D” or world market sugar, eight percent.
Martin said that with this allocation, the country would be able to meet the regular US quota of 138,827 MT, a buffer stock for possible additional US quota of around 61,993 MT, around 2.03 million MT of domestic demand including buffer stocks and around 247,000 MT for the world market.