THE PAKISTAN SUGAR INDUSTRY ITS CURRENT STATUS AND FUTURE NEEDS

Abstract

The small sugar industry can afford to idle along using Research and development (R & D) produced (and paid for) by other sugar industries but when it is big with world standards it's a different matter. This study was important because Pakistan is 5th largest producer of sugarcane but it still lacks major advancement in production and marketing. The largest producers are Brazil, India, Thailand, China, and Pakistan accounting for more than 70% of world production. Brazil has the highest area (5.34 million hectares) while Australia has the highest productivity a n d s u g a r c a n e y i e l d (85 tons per hectare). Sugarcane is the second largest cash crop of Pakistan and is being cultivated on 1.06 million hectares with 55 t ha cane yield and sugar yield of 5.5 t ha, contributing around 3.6 % of Gross domestic production. The installed capacity of 85 sugar factories is to produce 7.5 million tons of refined sugar and domestic demand is around 4.5 million tons. This shows it’s export potential of 3.5 million tons, annually.