Govt hikes import duty on sugar to 40% from 25%

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: The government on Wednesday hiked import duty on sugar to 40 percent from 25 percent, Food Min Ram Vilas Paswan said.

Government has also slapped the tax on imports of raw sugar that refiners turn into whites, or refined sugar, to sell in world markets.

The move has been aimed to check sliding price of the sweetener and enable mills to clear mounting cane arrears of about Rs 20,000 crore.

In August last year, import duty on both raw and refined sugar was raised to 25 per cent from 15 per cent to bail out the cash-starved sugar industry.

Sugar industry is finding difficulty in paying cane price to farmers as mills have been incurring losses for the last few years due to low realisation and high cost of production.

The Centre has recently provided a subsidy of Rs 4,000 per tonne for the exports of 1.4 million tonnes of raw sugars to improve cash-flow of millers.

Sugar production of India, the world's second largest producer, is estimated to be higher than the domestic consumption for the fifth year in a row this season.

The government has pegged sugar output at 26.5 million tonnes for the 2014-15 marketing year (October-September), as against 24.3 million tonnes in the previous year. The annual domestic demand is about 24.8 million tonne.


With PTI Inputs