Pak to get 66,000 tons sugar in a week: TCP

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan will receive about 66,000 tonnes of white sugar in a weeks time that it has bought through tenders in past months, chief of the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) said on Thursday. Pakistan issued several tenders in the past four months to buy sugar from the international market, after estimates its 2009/10 crop would yield about 3 million tonnes of white sugar, falling short of annual demand of 4.2 million tonnes. The TCP has awarded contracts to buy 375,000 tonnes of white sugar, out of which 59,000 tonnes has already arrived, TCP chairman Anjum Bashir told Reuters. Another 66,000 tonnes of white sugar will be arriving in a week, he said. The TCP this month cancelled a 50,000-tonne white sugar contract with Sadan General Trading after it failed to deliver on time. But Sadan is now providing 50,000 tonnes of white sugar under a separate contract. The TCP is still in the market through four tenders of 200,000 tonnes each, one to be opened on May 8. The government initially asked the TCP to import a total of 500,000 tonnes of white sugar this year, after which it issued several tenders from Dec. 31, to meet demand and maintain strategic reserves. But the TCP later said it had been given a mandate to import a total of 1.2 million tonnes sugar this year.