Board to mull streamlining programme of sugar industry
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The sugar industry's liberalisation plan for launching refineries has been submitted to the Office of the Cane and Sugar Board.
Industry Minister Chakramon Phasukvanich said yesterday that the OCSB would consider whether streamlining the setting up of sugar plants is possible and analyse the plan’s possible impacts.
In the future, developing a sugar plant would just require a regular factory permit and no longer the Cabinet’s approval, he said.
This would boost competition and benefit both the sugar refiners and cane growers, since the factory permit process would be simplified, while planters could choose to sell their crops to plants that offer the best prices, and could lower their transport costs.
There would be no regulation prohibiting sugar plants locating within 80 kilometres of another sugar plant.
In any case, the OCSB has to take up this proposal as it involves the size of sugar-cane harvests. The liberalisation concept will have to take into consideration future sugar prices, especially with the Asean Economic Community coming around the corner.
The sugar price may have to be floated up from the current level to curb the smuggling of huge quantities of sugar allocated for domestic consumption, whose price is regulated, to neighbouring countries, as the Thai price for domestic sugar is the lowest in Asean, Chakramon said.
