Gov’t not imposing sugar price control

The government is not imposing price control on sugar, President Benigno Aquino said yesterday.

Aquino, who was in Bacolod City, said he would rather have the market dictate its prices.

“Our focus is on the prevailing prices of fuel given the volatility of the situation, sugar is not something that was brought to my attention for price control,” he said.

At the open forum with the President at the Philippine economic briefing at L’Fisher Hotel in Bacolod City, sugar leader Roberto Abello said the suggestion of price control has affected domestic millgate prices.

He said prices at the start of the milling season started at P2,500 per Lkg but recently have  gone down to P1,760 or a drop by 30 percent, which is not good.

Abello also said the tariff on imported sugar is set to go down by 5 percent by 2015, and the industry is not ready for it. He appealed for a deferment.

The president said he would see what can be done,  but has to respect the country’s  international agreements.

Protecting one industry could result in retaliatory acts against the country’s other products for export, he said.

Aquino said the industry should gear up for competition, saying that if we keep on deferring tariff reductions we will never be ready for globalization and competition.

Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, president of the Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for Information and Community Technology, said the call center industry in Bacolod has created 8,000 jobs to date.

But as the demand for employees continues, she said a more dynamic, depoliticized and equitably distributed human resource development program is need to serve Bacolod and other areas outside Metro Manila.

Aquino, in his speech at the economic briefing, said there are plenty of reasons for the people of Bacolod and Negros Occidental to keep smiling.

“For one, your sugar industry has been doing very well, I understand the phrase, ‘Nagapala, nagapiko ang pera’ is starting to make a comeback. Your call center industry also has been growing quite quickly, giving people jobs, and in turn stimulating several other industries here. And you have seen unprecedented growth of small and medium-sized enterprises as well.”

Aquino said his administration’s vision for the economy is very, very clear. It is to create an environment where businesses thrive so that the economy continues to grow and is more widely felt, he said.

In a separate speech before a multi-sectoral gathering yesterday, the President said that if Bacolod is the City of Smiles, he hopes in 2016 when he steps down the country will be “Philippines, a nation of smiles.”CPG

(Source: http://www.visayandailystar.com/2011/March/05/topstory5.htm)