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Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia plans to import sugar to meet the need for the commodity in the first five months of next year, Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said.

She said at a press conference here on Wednesday the government was now still finishing the calculation of the need for the period when there would be no domestic sugar production.

"The decision to import sugar to build up stocks for the first five months next year has already been finalized, confirmed but how much it will be or who will conduct the import and which ports are to receive the imports still has to be determined," she said.

According to preliminary calculation, the domestic production of crystal white sugar this year is expected to drop to around 2.3 million tons from earlier forecast of 2.7 million tons due to weather anomaly.

The general chairman of the Association of Indonesian Sugar and Wheat Traders (Apegti), Natsir Mansyur, predicted earlier that the stock of crystal white sugar would decline by around 400,000 tons by the end of the year.

In view of that he suggested that the government immediately issued the permit to import the commodity while its world price is still low.

"The government had better issue the permit immediately so that we can import at a cheap price although the shipment may be done only in January in order not to disrupt the domestic price of sugar," he said.

Natsir said the international price of crystal white sugar free-on-board is now reaching US$540 per metric ton while in the middle of August it was recorded at only around US$450.

"At the end of the year the price is usually going up and in December it could possibly reach up to US$700 per metric ton," he said.(*)

Editor: Heru
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