Sugar producers give alarm as sales decrease in Moldova

Chisinau, 25 September /MOLDPRES/ - The Union of Sugar Producers from Moldova (UPZM) gives alarm: the sales of sugar are hit by the high production costs, contraband made from the Transnistrian region and the trade based on licences. The area cultivated with sugar beet decreased by 27 per cent against the year before and the sugar production – by eight per cent, sugar producers have said.     

According to UPZM, in 2018, the losses from some fields borne because of unfriendly weather conditions led to the fact that the sugar beet was harvested from only 19,000 hectares out of 22,000 hectares sowed. Because of the extremely low quality of the sugar beet and the high level of its losses, the productivity was on average 37.3 tons per one hectare. As a result, some agricultural enterprises which failed to get the wished productivity of sugar beet refused to cultivate the latter in 2019.  

Representatives of sugar producing companies said that, because of the elimination of quotas for the sugar production in the European Union, in the last years, there was an excessive supply of this product and a significant cut in prices. This fact led to a diminution of sugar supply from Moldova within the preferential euro quotas. Moreover, because of the lack of targeted subsidizations and high price for sugar beet in Moldova, in comparison with other countries of the region, the competitiveness of the domestic sugar on the European market is quite problematic.    

On the other hand, at a recent meeting held at the Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment Ministry, representatives of sugar producing companies said that the domestic specialized enterprises were facing also big difficulties as to the sale of sugar made of sugar beet on the domestic market, where they must “compete with smugglers and traders of sugar working based on licences.”   

According to experts’ estimations, in the last year, 10,000 tons of smuggled sugar entered Moldova, which was actually sold through wholesale and retail trade by holders of commercial licences. The participants in the meeting agreed that the sale of food products based on licences was allowed only if the seller is their producer.   

The Agriculture, Regional Development and Environment Ministry forecast a harvest of 650,000 tons of sugar beet and a production of 84,000 tons of sugar this year.

Data by the National Statistics Bureau shows that a record in the sugar production in the last years was registered in 2014, when it amounted to 177.7 thousand tons and a sugar production of 129 thousand tons was achieved in 2017.