Records of low domestic sugar output lead to high imports

As informed by the Vietnam Sugar Association, at the end of the 2020/21 crop year, the country's sugar output was 689,830 tons, much lower compared to the output of the previous crop (763,931 tons). And this is also the season where sugar production is at a record low.

On the other hand, sugar imports in the first half of this year have sharply increased. Data from the General Department of Customs has shown that in the first six months of this year, the amount of imported sugar was 781,334 tons, an increase of more than 13% in comparison to the same period last year. This is a record number of imports during the first half of the year, unprecedented in Vietnam's sugar industry.

Of the total sugar imports mentioned above, sugar imported from five ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar) was 399,189 tons, which is more than 10 times higher than the same period in the previous year.

In the opinion of the Vietnam Sugar Association, all five ASEAN countries mentioned above are certain to have zero development in sugar cane competitiveness to be able to export sugar to Vietnam with such explosive growth. In fact, this is a clear sign of the move to evade anti-dumping and anti-subsidy taxes on cane sugar products originating from Thailand, when all five countries have imported sugar from Thailand, and the quality of sugar imported into Vietnam from the five ASEAN countries mentioned above has origin relations to Thailand.