Vietnam may have to import 150,000- 200,000 tons of raw sugar next year due to its shortage of sugarcane, according to a local agriculture agency Monday.

The domestic demand for sugar is estimated at 1.2 million tons in 2006, while 42 sugar plants nationwide are expected to turn out some 1 million tons of the product, said the Agriculture Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The 2005-2006 sugarcane crop has just started in Vietnam, but state-owned plants have found hard to buy sugarcane from growers, because many sell the material to private small-scale sugar production bases to avoid cumbersome procedures.

Now, one ton of sugarcane and refined sugar sells for around 450,000 Vietnamese dong (VND) (28.3 US dollars) and nearly 10 million VND (628.9 dollars) in the domestic market, respectively. Sugar retail prices are expected to increase slightly in the coming weeks.

Vietnam produced over 1 million tons of sugar during the 2004- 2005 sugarcane crop, which ended in July, down 10.7 percent against the previous crop, due to a prolonged drought. During the crop, plants nationwide turned out 902,000 tons of sugar, and households 180,000 tons of the product, the department said.

Source: Xinhua