Govt to free sugar exports

Govt to free sugar exports by removing quantitative restrictions  May 3,  9:11 AM  The government has decided to free sugar exports by removing quantitative restrictions to help the industry liquidate surplus stocks. A high-level inter-ministerial meeting chaired by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh yesterday also scrapped the Minimum Export Price, MEP on onion to give fillip to its export and ensure better returns to growers.  Highly placed sources said that it was also decided to constitute a committee, headed by the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, PMEAC Chairman, C Rangarajan, for formulating policy on how to handle surplus foodgrains in government godowns and suggest ways for foodgrains export. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, Food and Public Distribution Minister KV Thomas attended the meeting. Source said, Sugar will be exported under the Open General Licence only, not under first come first serve basis. On March 26 this year, the Empowered Group of Ministers on Food had decided to allow export of one million tonnes of sugar, but the decision has not been notified yet in absence of export modalities.  AIR correspondent reports that doing away with the release order would ensure that sugar shipments for exports move faster. The Government had earlier done away with the release order mechanism in 2008. According to the industry estimates, Sugar production in the current 2011-12 year-ending September is expected to touch 26 million tonnes. It is about 2 and a half million tonnes more compared with the same period a year ago. On the other hand, due to high export price of onions, India had lost its competitive edge in international onion markets to China and Egypt. At present, the MEP for onion is 125 dollars a tonne. India's onion production is estimated at 151.36 lakh tonnes in 2011-12, which is higher than the previous year's output of 145.62 Lakh tonnes