Shipment of 25,000 tons arrives

KARACHI: The Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) will receive 25,000 tons of sugar at the Port Qasim within the next two days, according to a press release issued by the TCP on Monday.

A ship carrying a cargo of the sweetener has already arrived in the country and is awaiting clearance to berth at the outer anchorage of Port Qasim. The ship is expected to unload its cargo by Wednesday.

“A shipment of 895 containers carrying a total of 23,791 tons of sugar arrived last week, bringing the total to 48,791 tons that has arrived in the country during the current month,” TCP Public Relations Officer Khizar Hayat told The Express Tribune. “About 423,214 tons of sugar has been imported so far this year,” Hayat added.

As sugar stocks held by local mills wind down, imports through the TCP have been stepped up and another 150,000 tons of the sweetener is expected to arrive by the end of September.

The imported sugar is being supplied to the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) and provincial governments for sale in open markets. USC has already lifted 213,129 tons of sugar from the TCP. But provincial governments have so far only procured about 39,289 tons.

Wholesalers have criticised the government for a slow lifting of sugar from the TCP and delivering it to retail markets, which has allowed millers to increase prices over three weeks. Sugar prices have rocketed in retail markets due to the slow distribution by the TCP and provincial governments.

TCP officials, however, stressed that the corporation “has sufficient stocks for further release by the government to general public through provincial governments.”

Separately, the TCP has announced that it has donated Rs2.57 million in cash and relief goods to the Prime Minister’s Flood Relief Fund. A press release issued by the TCP said that it has dispatched relief goods to the affected areas in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh. The relief goods were distributed in the form of hampers of ration from money collected by TCP officers, who have voluntarily donated one day’s salary for the effort.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 7^th, 2010.