RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) Punjab condemning the attitude of various districts’ administration against the mills, has urged the chief minister Punjab to support the sugar industry in its time of distress instead of threatening them of sealing their factories.

In a statement issued here on Friday, PSMA Punjab claimed that the industry was passing through a very hard time but districts’ administration was unjustifiably summoning the sugar mills administrations in open courts, humiliating them and threatening them of the closure of the factories.

It said that such attitude of the government would only result in the suspension of business activities and making it impossible for the mills to continue crushing.

PSMA Punjab appealed the CM to direct stoppage of harassing the mills’ administration by the district and provincial administrations. They questioned Prime Minister Imran Khan and Finance Minister Asad Umer that it is the same business friendly environment they keep on talking to create in the country after coming in to power. PSMA Punjab Zone members, however, welcomed the announcement of freight subsidy on the export of sugar.

They said that millers were facing to dispose of their produce in the international market because of recession and lower rates of sugar. They claimed that this industry had always played a positive role in the strengthening of the national economy and tried to pay the sugarcane growers in time utilizing all the available resources.

They vowed to continue their efforts for paying the farmers in time even if they had to mortgage their stocks at higher rates. They claimed that sugar millers in Pakistan were facing financial issues as they could not meet even their production cost.