Over-Supply of Sugar Lead to a 54% Decline on Imports

Surplus supply of sugar in the country led to a 54 percent decline in sugar imports from January to April 2018 compared to the same period in 2017.

The Sugar Directorate has disclosed that imported sugar dropped from 133,467 tonnes from January to April 2017 to 61,516 tonnes in the period under review.

According to a report from the Sugar directory, so indicates that in April, the imported volumes declined from 25,845 tonnes in April last year to 12,071 tonnes in the month of April.

During the month, table sugar imports totaled 2,402 tonnes while refined white sugar stood at 9,669 tonnes.

The directorate has been regulating the volume of imported sweetener to an average of 7,000 tonnes a month from highs of 29,000.

Normally, Kenya is allowed to annually source 350,000 tonnes of sugar from Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) free trade area, which is spread across the year to about 30,000 tonnes monthly.

The country imported 981,000 tonnes of sugar between May and December last year as the Treasury opened the duty-free window to allow traders to ship in the commodity outside Comesa to bridge the local deficit.

The directorate said the number of traders seeking import permits had gone down in recent months because of the high volume of sugar in the country.

The Treasury scrapped duty on the commodity last year following a sharp decline in production that saw the price go up to S400 shillings for a 2-kilogram packet.

Kenya produces about 600,000 tonnes of sugar a year, compared with annual consumption of 870,000 tonnes.