Govt Links Ethanol Export to In-House Use of Molasses

(The News) The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of cabinet on Monday bound ethanol manufacturers to directly purchase its raw material from sugar mills or use the in-house by-product for the biofuel production.

The decision was taken during a Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) meeting presided over by the Finance Minister Asad Umar. The meeting approved the proposal of the ministry of commerce to amend the export policy order 2016 to make it mandatory for ethanol producers to use in-house supply or stocks of sugar mills.

“The export of ethanol and other products manufactured from cane molasses shall be subject to the condition that cane molasses used in production of ethanol and other products manufactured from cane molasses being exported is either produced in-house by the exporter or purchased directly from a sugar mill,” the finance minister said in a statement.

Pakistan is the one of the largest ethanol producers in the world, while alone molasses, a viscous product produced in sugarcane refining, fetched the government around $20 million in exports revenue during the last fiscal year of 2017/18, up an impressive 66 percent over the previous fiscal year.

The ECC further decided that proper recording of production and sale of molasses, can be used as an indicator to gauge the production of sugar, thus assisting the tax authorities in collection of due taxes. READ MORE