NAVI MUMBAI, JULY 10: Chances are that the sugar you are stirring in your morning tea may be produced in Pakistan, that too from Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif's controlled industry.Believe it or not, despite the Kargil conflict, India continues to import sugar from Pakistan and what is more, nearly a third of the total sugar imported into the country comes from our neighbour.Wholesale sugar market leader and Bombay Sugar Merchants Association president Mohan Gurnani told UNI that Pakistan has literally dumped its sugar in India and ran out of its own domestic stock.Of the 16.02 lakh tonnes sugar imported by India, between September 1997 and June 1999, over 5.5 lakh tonnes came from Pakistan alone followed by 4.37 lakh tonnes from Brazil, 2.63 lakh tonnes from Thailand and and 1.26 lakh tonnes from the European union. Mexico, South Africa, Sudan, China, Argentina, UAE and Burma contributed the rest of the quantity, official statistics reveal.An interesting fact of the story is that Sharif, a sugarbaron himself, has made sure that sugar from his native Punjab region is exported to India. Sharif and his associates control a large chunk of the sugar industry in Pakistan, Gurnani explained.Despite a bumper sugarcane crop, India is forced to import sugar abiding by the general agreement on trade and tariffs. Gurnani complained that the Indian business community is put to a price disadvantage vis-a-vis the imported sugar since 40 per cent of the domestic sugar goes to the government's public distribution system at a reduced rate called levy price. On the other hand, he said the imported sugar is `dumped' in the Indian market. "We have been sending memorandum to the Government, but to no avail," he added. Top
