Jakarta, Sept 16 - Indonesian sugar refiners will import an additional 445,000 tonnes of raw sugar this year to boost sugar stocks, an industry official said on Wednesday.
Indonesia relies on imported raw sugar to produce high quality refined sugar used in the food and beverage industry.
The country is, however, scaling back imports of white sugar for direct consumption after local production exceeded demand.
But due to the recent spike in global sugar prices, domestic sugar prices have surged to a record above 11,000 rupiah per kg.
The government has said it has been studying options to ease the prices among others by allowing additional raw sugar imports and cutting import duties.
"It has been decided today there will be additional permits to import 445,000 tones of raw sugar, of which 225,000 tonnes will be taken from the import allocation for 2010," said Yamin Rachman, executive director of the Indonesian Sugar Refiners' Association.
As of September 1, the trade ministry had issued permits to import 1.81 million tonnes of raw sugar, or 140,000 tonnes above its initial target.