Deshbandhu Sugar Mills seeks ministry nod to import raw sugar

Deshbandhu Sugar Mills Ltd, the country’s pioneering sugar-producing factory of 1932 and later privatised in1999, has urged the commerce ministry to help it open Letter of Credits (LCs) to import ‘Raw Sugar’ as intermediary materials for sugar production ahead of the Ramadan month, an official of the commerce ministry, said.

Three commercial banks Social Islami Bank Ltd, First Security Islami Bank and state-run commercial bank Agrani Bank have been turning down LC applications for import of raw sugar for Deshbandhu, which is a sugar refiner too, for the last four months.

Brig Gen (Retd) Sarwar Jahan Talukder, adviser to the Deshbandhu Group, on Wednesday sent a letter to senior commerce secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh for taking necessary steps to ask the three respective banks to open LC documents for the country’s oldest sweetener manufacturing mills.

In the last ‘essentials committee’ meeting on supply of and demand for some essential products, it was decided by the commerce ministry that supply and storage of essential inventories should be maintained for the convenience of the consumers, the letter said.

It also talked about ensuring the availability of the essential goods in the month of Ramadan and the local refiner has urged the commerce ministry to immediately solve the problem.

Bangladesh Bank in a recent circular gave traders the opportunity to import eight Ramadan-oriented products based on 90-day credit and open LC with a minimum margin depending on the bank-client relationships.

Amid a tightened LC opening criteria, the central bank has allowed imports of edible oil, chickpea, pulses, pea, onion, spices, sugar and date on lenient terms effective for up to 90 days under supplier’s/buyer’s credit. The facility will remain applicable until March 31.

In July, the national bank imposed a 75-100 percent cash margin on the import of specific goods while restricting bank loans against these products in an effort to save hard-earned dollars.

The July circular did not impose restrictions on importing food or other essential products.

Right now, Deshbandhu is running with a daily refining capacity of 1,000 tonnes of sugar at its Narsingdi facility and the expansion project will take it to 1,500 tonnes by the next 12-15 months.

The sugar mill is selling around 3 lakh tonnes of sugar a year, and is expected to raise it to 5 lakh tonnes by 2024.

Bangladesh sugar market has been growing at an average annual rate of 10% in the last two decades to around 26 lakh tonnes a year prior to the outbreak of Covid-19 and it slowed down to around 22 lakh tonnes currently as people are consuming because of multiple reasons.