The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) approved on Monday the importation of 440,000 metric tons (MT) of sugar this year.

“The decision of the board is to import 440,000 MT of sugar. We divided it into three tranches, so the 100,000 MT will arrive as soon as possible. The reason is that there is pressure to lower the retail price. The second importation is by April and the rest is buffer stock.” Pablo Azcona, SRA board member, said in an interview.

In a separate interview with UNTV, Azcona said ''we are trying to make sure that the consumers will feel the drop in the retail price. And at the same time, we are making sure that the farmers won’t get very low farm gate price.”

Refined sugar prices are go down to P80 to P85 per kilo with the arrival of imported sugar from the current range of P87 to P110. Jaspearl Tan/DMS