"Some dishonest businessmen are importing sugar through under-invoicing in connivance with dishonest customs officials. On the other hand, huge amount of sugar is entering the country through smuggling. As result, locally produced sugar remains unsold," said Shamsul Haque Badal, secretary of Bangladesh Wholesale Sugar Merchant Association, at a press conference held at the National Press Club in Dhaka yesterday.

The local demand for sugar is 5 lakh metric tons yearly. For this, the production target for local 15 sugar mills was more or less 2 lakh metric tones per year. The remaining 3 lakh metric tons are imported. But because of the opportunity of free sugar import, 4 lakh 90 thousand metric tones were imported by the private importers within the first week of March of this year. Price of sugar went down in the local market because of the huge amount of import compared to local demand, he observed.

We can be self-sufficient in sugar production. For that, we need a national sugar policy. The government has not declared a sugar policy yet, although there are drug policy, salt policy and jute policy. The BWSMA urged the industries minister to submit a bill seeking declaring a national sugar policy in the next session of the parliament, he added.

Some importers are controlling the sugar market arbitrarily by forming a syndicate. So, the authority of importing sugar should be given to the Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industry Corporation shortly, he also added.

Among others, Abul Hashem, secretary, Sher Mohammad, organising secretary, and other members of the BWSMA were also present at the conference.