State sugar mills aim to boost annual output by 45%

State sugar mills are set to start the crushing of sugarcane from the middle of this month, with a target of increasing production by 45 percent year-on-year in the current fiscal year of 2024-25.

Nine state sugar mills under the Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation (BSFIC) target to produce 45,000 tonnes of sugar in the current fiscal year, up from around 31,000 tonnes a year ago, according to official data.

"We have good plantations this year," said BSFIC Secretary Md Anowar Kabir.

The BSFIC looks to increase production of sugar at a time when inflation has been stubbornly high and consumers are compelled to pay at least Tk 135 to buy one kilogramme of sugar in Dhaka.

The corporation aims to crush 750,000 tonnes of locally growth sugarcane during this crushing season, beginning with North Bengal Sugar Mill on November 15.

The BSFIC crushed just over 600,000 tonnes of sugarcane in the previous season.

If achieved, the latest target would be the highest in four years.

Sugar production by state mills fell to 21,000 tonnes, the lowest on record, in FY23 and the BSFIC was able to prevent it from falling further and increase overall output the following fiscal.

However, the corporation could not bring down its losses, which stood at Tk 571 crore in FY24, up from Tk 532 crore.

The main factor for this was that the government closed down six sugar mills in December 2020 to trim the burden of loses.

Bangladesh annually requires 24 lakh tonnes of sugar and because of scanty domestic production of sugarcane, imported sweetener meets around 99 percent of the total requirement.

Five private refiners import raw sugar, mainly from Brazil, to process and market locally.