SRA urges traders to buy local raw sugar

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The Philippine Star

December 24, 2025 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — The Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) is enticing sugar industry players, especially traders and buyers, to buy locally-produced raw sugar at a higher price in exchange for a guaranteed export allocation in the future.

The SRA is banking again on its voluntary purchase program to prop up local raw sugar prices that have plunged by more than 10 percent on an annual basis.

The government has attributed the drop in raw sugar farmgate prices to higher supplies caused by better production but critics have lamented that importation has been the culprit behind the higher than usual sweetener stocks.

Raw sugar prices at the end of November fell by almost P300 to P2,200 per 50-kilo bag year-on-year.

But latest bidding prices indicate that raw sugar farmgate price is still on a downward trend with raw sugar being bought at below P2,200 per 50-kilo bag in certain areas in Visayas. Some industry players consider P2,200 per 50-kilo bag as the breakeven cost of farmers.

The SRA has been utilizing its voluntary purchase program to influence market prices by siphoning off from market sale a certain volume of supply for a specific time period, artificially pulling down overall supply in the market.

This time, the SRA is expected to issue a Sugar Order that will allow traders and buyers to purchase a total of 400,000 metric tons of raw sugar at a higher price in exchange of getting a piece of the prospective 100,0000 MT of raw sugar to be exported to the United States.

Each participating entity that buys four kilos of raw sugar will be allowed to export a kilo of raw sugar to the US. The caveat of the system comes in the form of an eventual import allocation should the government opens an import program in the future.