The leadership of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association has formally requested an immediate, high-level consultation with the specialized federal cabinet committee under the guidance of Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar. This administrative appeal seeks official authorization to initiate the export of substantial surplus sugar volumes currently sitting within domestic storehouses. The representative body highlighted that the local processing industry is currently enduring immense cash flow constraints due to the accumulation of excess domestic inventory, which continues to tie up valuable operational capital that would otherwise circulate through the agricultural marketplace.
In a comprehensive formal communication dispatched directly to Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, the Chairman of the association, Chaudhry Zaka Ashraf, insisted on an early structural determination regarding the excess quantities. The industrial council detailed that even after carefully setting aside a secure, mandatory one-month strategic national food reserve for the local population, a clear surplus of 0.76 million metric tonnes would remain completely available for global shipping. The administrative body emphasized that the immediate international offloading of this specific surplus volume could potentially yield close to 500 million dollars in vital foreign exchange inflows, directly strengthening the precarious national current account position.
According to the factual indicators provided by the trade association, total domestic processing output throughout the 2025-26 crushing season outpaced general domestic consumption patterns by a wide margin. The organizational data illustrates that total domestic inventory reached 7.9 million metric tonnes, whereas annual domestic consumption requirements are estimated to sit near 6.6 million metric tonnes, even after factoring in regional population expansions. This pronounced imbalance has left the manufacturing landscape with an unabsorbed net surplus of approximately 1.3 million metric tonnes, triggering severe systemic friction for both processing plants and independent sugarcane cultivators.
The association explained that these repeating structural gluts frequently create severe financial vulnerabilities for processing mills, primarily because local wholesale valuations have consistently dropped below the inflated expenses of actual factory production. This pricing suppression stems from recent surges across vital operational inputs, causing ongoing financial damage to commercial operators. Furthermore, these massive stationary inventories have severely degraded the immediate liquidity profiles of the mills, directly impeding their capacity to service institutional bank financing installments punctually or completely settle outstanding dues owed to regional farming families.
The trade leadership pointed out that the prompt, efficient monetary disbursements provided to sugarcane cultivators over the trailing two-year cycle had previously served as a powerful incentive for them to invest heavily in premium fertilizers, modern equipment, and superior crop strains. This agricultural upgrade successfully enhanced both the physical per-acre agricultural yields and the internal sucrose recovery ratios during refinement. Looking ahead, early field assessments indicate another potential record-breaking sugarcane harvest, which could introduce a massive subsequent surplus of nearly two million metric tonnes, valued roughly between 1.5 billion and 2 billion dollars on the international trading floor.
Concluding the urgent policy memorandum, the industrial body warned that prolonged delays in federal executive decision-making could severely damage the manufacturing sector’s capacity to extend favorable procurement rates to farming communities during the incoming planting cycle. Without a swift, technology-tracked regulatory greenlight to access global buyers, the compounding lack of liquidity will inevitably trickle down into the primary agricultural supply chain, potentially discouraging future cultivation and destabilizing a critical component of the national agro-industrial ecosystem.
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