Dubai company gets sweet deal in sugar bid

The Sugar Corporation awarded a procurement of 100,000 metric tons of sugar for the Dubai based supplier, Al Khaleej Sugar on Friday December 1.
The company which is familiar to the Ethiopian market will transport the product up to Djibouti port through January.
The sugar shortage has not been alleviated with local production so the government has imported 70,000 metric tons of sugar recently.
In the recent bid, though the invitation to short listed companies; five importers participated on November 24 hoping they would be picked to import the product as soon as possible.
The companies who bided are ED and F Man, Tereos Commodities, Agro Corp, Sucden, and Al Khaleej. Sucden is the company that supplied the 70,000 metric tons that was procured before the end of the past budget year to fill the gap that occurred when sugar factories shut down for maintenance at the beginning of the current budget year.
In the latest procurement Al Khaleej won the bid by offering 496.91 USD per ton up to the Djibouti port or FOB of 460.91 USD at the port of the initial point. The company is expected to supply the sweat from UAE or Pakistan and the payment will be settled within 12 months.
Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn recently said that the import of sugar will be continued until the shortage is alleviated.
Several sugar projects commenced in the first Growth and Transformation Plan, but none of them commenced commercial production.
In the last couple of months the sugar shortage was visibly observed in the capital and regional towns and the price of the product skyrocketed on the black-market. In his latest press briefing the PM apologized to the general public for the incident and he promised that the government will continue importing.
The corporation has plans to cut sugar imports as of the budget year and it has unsuccessfully to export sugar to Kenya.