Duty-free sugar imports fail to tame high retail prices after four months

Duty-free sugar imports have failed to quell rising retail prices for the commodity despite it having been shipped into the country since January when the window first opened.

Data from the Sugar Directorate indicate that the quantities imported between January and March this year amounted to 93,000 tons, compared to 46,000 tons in the same period last year.

is reading: Cheap sugar imports from India and Madagascar cool prices

The sharp increase in the volume of imports came on the back of tariff exemptions to allow the shipment of cheap goods to address the shortages that kept prices high.

The average price of sugar was Sh157 a kilo, up from Sh150 in January, the directorate says, citing the high cost of local shortages.

On supermarket shelves, a two-kilogram packet of sugar now sells for more than Sh300 on average, from Sh289 in February.

The duty-free import of sugar is part of a broader government plan to reduce the high cost of goods and help households cope with the high cost of basic commodities.

Domestically, production has been hampered by the diminishing supply of sugarcane on plantations on the back of lack of rain in previous seasons.

A shortage of sugar cane left millers struggling with what little was available, driving the price of a ton of the commodity from Sh4,584, the price recommended by the Directorate of Sugar, to Ksh5,250.

Decreased supply of sugarcane to mills, which reduced production activities, led to total packaged sugar in the review period decreasing by 26 percent to 49,761 tons.

Lower production will force consumers to pay more for the commodity on the back of limited availability in the market.

outside COMESA

The first of two ships with more than 42,000 tons of sugar docked in February to ease the pain of reduced production by local millers.

is reading: Duty-free dock for sugar imports at the Port of Mombasa

The government opened an import window in December that would see traders ship 100,000 tonnes of sugar out of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa to curb impending shortages in the country that sent the sweetener up to Sh312 for one price. A box weighs a kilo.

The state also allowed the Kenya National Trading Company to import another 200,000 tonnes duty-free.

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