Local producers of confectionery items asked the government to allow them to import sugar because of the alleged prohibitive cost of domestic sugar.
The Philippine Confectionery Biscuits & Snack Association, a group of 18 producers of confectionery products, sent a letter to the Trade Department to complain that domestic sugar was now costing 200 percent more than the sugar produced outside the Philippines.
PCBSA president Kissinger Sy said the “price distortion is very significant to PCBSA members as sugar is the main ingredient of a confectionery item.”
“At the average, sugar constitutes about 60 percent of each confectionery item,” Sy said.
He said the price of domestic sugar recently shot up to as high as P2,790 per 50-kilogram bag, against the landed price of imported sugar at $400 or about P1,300 a bag.
Sy said that even at this price, availability of supply was still not assured.
He said the survival of local confectionery producers was now at stake and that the share of importers of confectionery items had significantly increased from a mere 5 percent of the confectionery market in 2010 to 30 percent in 2017.
The group estimated that annual sales of confectionery items in the country excluding chocolates reached P30 billion in 2017.