Sugar Shortage Forces B.S.I. to Import Sugar

The sugar shortage across the country continues. Stores have begun limiting the amount of sugar one person can purchase. This shortage has been affecting families, bakers and businesses for weeks. When we spoke with Prime Minister John Briceño recently, he told us that the government is addressing the problem of sugar shortages. The scarcity is primarily due to distributors unlawfully selling sugar to businesses across the borders at higher prices. It has gotten worse as B.S.I. will import sugar from the US. B.S.I.’s Director of Finance Shawn Chavarria explains.

Shawn Chavarria

Shawn Chavarria, Director of Finance, B.S.I.

“ We know that there is this cross border informal trade that is taking place, which is going to Guatemala and Mexico, where it fetches a significantly higher price. And then more recently, we’ve had to take away sugar from more lucrative markets and selling it on the local market at much lower prices. So as an industry, we are again suffering because the price and the revenue that we could earn from exporting this sugar, we’re now sacrificing that because we want to keep the local market, the domestic market, fed. But that sugar, in a sense, is being exported by others, and they are weeping the benefits and rewards of it, as opposed to the farmers and ourselves. And so we want the government to look seriously at this situation to adjust the sugar prices to levels that are consistent with market levels so that we avoid this situation because it will not go away. Mexico is forecasted to have another poor crop. That means they will continue to have shortages, their prices will remain high, and therefore that incentive to smuggle the sugar across the border will continue into next year. We currently have roughly 10 days left of white sugar and that’s we’re looking to import white sugar from the U. S. to give us some cover while the crop starts. We have enough brown at the moment. But as I said, we are taking that brown sugar from export markets and putting it on the domestic market so that we can continue to supply. But in terms of white sugar, we’re very low on. We’re looking to import to give us cover for the first week of once a crop starts so that we can continue to supply the market.”