Duty-free sugar imports, which Kenya began to accept in January, have not been able to reduce high retail prices.
According to data from the Sugar Directorate, 93,000 tonnes were imported between January and March compared to 46,000 tonnes during the same time last year.
Due to a tariff waiver that allowed the shipment of inexpensive goods to alleviate a scarcity that had been keeping prices high, import volumes sharply increased.
According to the directorate, the average price of sugar has increased to Ksh157 ($1.15) per kilogram from Ksh150 ($1.10) in January due to a local scarcity.
Millers pay a high price for sugar cane
Sugar imports are duty-free as part of a larger government initiative to reduce the high cost of products.
Local production has been hampered by farms’ declining cane supplies. Due to millers’ struggles with the limited supply of cane, the sugar directorate’s suggested price for a tonne of the product has increased from Ksh4,584 ($33.58) to Ksh5,250 ($38.46).
The total amount of sugar bagged in the review period fell by 26% to 49,761 tonnes as a result of factories’ reduced ability to produce sugar due to a drop in the supply of cane to those facilities. The market’s low supply will force demand as manufacturing declines.
In order to lessen the pain of the local millers’ fall in production, the first two vessels docked in February carrying more than 42,000 tonnes of sugar.
In order to stop an impending shortage in the nation that had driven up the price of the sweetener to Ksh312 ($2.29) for a two-kilo packet, the government opened an import window in December that would allow traders to ship in 100,000 tonnes of sugar from outside the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) region.
Additionally, the government has given the Kenya National Trading Corporation permission to import an additional 200,000 tonnes duty-free.
