Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government will permit the import of 800 thousand tons of raw sugar in the fourth quarter (October-December) of 2015 to meet the refined sugar needs of the domestic sugar industry, stated the Trade Ministry.

"The volume of sugar to be imported is about 800 thousand tons," Acting Director General of External Trade of the Ministry of Trade Karyanto Suprih noted here on Monday.

The acting director general remarked that the Ministry of Industry is still calculating the volume of allocation for the domestic food and beverage industries based on their respective performance.

He pointed out that although it has decided to import 800 thousand tons of sugar, but the trade ministry had yet to issue permits for its import.

"We are still talking about figures. The import permit has yet to be issued," stated Suprih.

Data at the Ministry of Trade indicated that a permit for the import of 630,430 tons of sugar in the third quarter has been issued.

The Trade Ministry has also issued a Producer Importer (IP) permit in the first quarter (Jan-March) for the import of 672,676 tons, of which 99.83 percent, or 671,517 tons had been realized.

In the second quarter (April-June), the ministry issued an IP for the import of 945,642 tons of raw sugar.

The allocation for the import of raw sugar in 2015 accounted for about 2.8 million tons whose import permits were issued for 11 refined sugar industries, with the objective of meeting the needs of the domestic food and beverage industries.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2015