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BusinessLive reports that the government is moving to boost the struggling sugar industry and putting in place measures to ensure it is designated a priority supplier in SA.
The local sugar industry generates an income of about R14bn a year and is responsible for at least 350,000 jobs. However, it has been on the brink of collapse in recent times due to several headwinds, including a drop in sales volumes, partly due to the sugar tax, falling prices and stiff competition from cheap imports mainly from Brazil. In parliament on Tuesday, Department of Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel said the industry master plan would soon be gazetted, giving effect to some of the proposed measures to stabilise the sector. The plan will focus on growing and transforming the sector. Noting that demand was shrinking because of decline in consumption, Patel indicated that government and key industry stakeholders had looked at the opportunities and other uses for sugar, such as bio-fuels and bio-plastics. He pointed out that the crisis in the sector started before Covid-19. The DA’s Dean Macpherson claimed that the challenges facing the sector largely had to do with the sugar tax introduced in April, which government “refuses” to scrap.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Bekezela Phakathi at BusinessLive
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