NTL, STC to ease sugar supply

KATHMANDU, JAN 24 -
Retailers have expressed their interest to buy sugar from the state-own companies-National Trading Limited (NTL) and Salt Trading Corporation Limited (STC)-at Rs. 78 kg and sell in the market at Rs. 80 per kg as fixed by the government.

NTL and STC have started buying sugar from domestic mills at Rs. 65. The two companies will also directly sell the commodity to the customers through their outlets in the Valley from Wednesday. But, consumers are still at the receiving end are paying as much as Rs. 90 for one kg of sugar from the retail market.

"The government needs our support to ease the supply of sugar. The price can be balanced if the government sells sugar at Rs. 78 per kg.," said Pabitra Bajracharya, President of Nepal Retailers' Association. "We at least need two rupees margin in every kilogram for transportation and other costs." Earlier, when the government had set the price of sugar at Rs. 53 per kg, the retailers had bought sugar for Rs. 51.50 to sell at Rs. 53 per kg.

Bajracharya said if the government sells sugar at a reasonable price to the retailers, they would help discourage black marketing and also bring down the price which has gone above Rs. 90 per kg in the market in the recent days. "But the government is not interested in providing sugar to us retailers and chances are that big traders will black market," he added.

The government is aiming to intervene in the market with sugar bought from domestic producers to make the supply smooth and check the price hike.

"We have to provide sugar to the retailers to ease sugary supply at the root level. There is no alternative to this," said Urmila Shrestha, General Manager of STC. "We will talk to the Ministry of Commerce and Supplies tomorrow regarding price for the retailers."

NTL and STC have bought around 2,000 tonnes of sugar from domestic producers as of Friday. The state entities bought 750 tonnes from Everest Sugar Mill, 800 tonnes from Mahalaxmi Sugar Mill and are in the process to procure sugar from other six major domestic sugar mills.

The government has asked the domestic producers to provide 5,000 tonnes of sugar at factory gate at the rate of Rs. 65 per kg as an option to ease the supply and control the skyrocketing price before sugar being imported from Brazil and Thailand arrives

Shrestha said that the government was receiving sugar from domestic producers regularly and selling to the customers directly from various outlets of NTL, STC and Nepal Food Corporation at Kalimati, Teku, Nakkhu, Koteshwor and Thapathali in the Valley. "We are also planning to establish temporary outlets. We will be using mobile shops at 15 different locations," she added.

About the government plans to import sugar from Brazil and Thailand, Shrestha said that the Thai supplier was preparing to make shipment within a week. "I just received a call from Thailand, they said that they are all set to dispatch the consignment," said Shrestha.  

However, there is still no concrete answer as to when the Brazilian sugar is arriving. "Neither the supplier has fixed the date for shipment nor has it cancelled our demand," said Shrestha. "They have just assured that they will make the shipment soon."

NTL and STC have already opened the letter of credit to import 25,000 tonnes of sugar from Brazil and 12,500 tonnes from Thailand.

source: ekantipur.com