Sugar producers said on Saturday night that sugar prices in the country were still high because there was no imposed suggested retail price.

"The problem of increasing sugar prices is not (the) supply. The problem here is the implementation of the SRP," United Sugar Producers Federation of the Philippines president Manuel Lamata said in a television interview.

Lamata added that UNIFED didn't like it when the government had to import sugar into the country while milling was at its peak.

The UNIFED also said it had a stock of 6,000 metric tons of sugar, which caused mill gate prices to drop to P60 per kilo in the last three weeks.

DA on sugar importation

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., also the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, ordered the agency last week to speed up the importation of thousands of metric tons of sugar to keep the price of the commodity stable.

But DA said that Marcos' order to speed up the import of refined sugar is still being finalized because the issue needs to be discussed with stakeholders.

"We will be accessing the (minimum access volume) scheme, but nothing has been finalized," DA deputy spokesperson Rex Estoperez said last week in a radio interview.

Estoperez mentioned that the MAV Advisory Council still needs to meet to discuss the president's plan to speed up refined sugar imports.