ISLAMABAD:

Planning Minister Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Wednesday directed developing a medium-term framework for deregulating sugar industry, stressing industries to ensure data uniformity, crop zoning and backward integration.

He passed the directives while chairing a meeting of the Prime Minister’s Committee on Sugar stocking, forecasting and planning, notified in December last to develop a foolproof system of monitoring and report authentic position of sugar stocks for timely decisions on exports, a news release said.

The meeting was attended by Minister for Industries and Production Rana Tanveer Hussain, and Minister of State for Finance Ali Parvez Malik.

Senior member of Pakistan Sugar Mills Association briefed the minister that in the previous years, availability of acquiring accurate data had been a persistent problem for the association. He acknowledged the role of FBR as it worked with Sugar Mills Association last year for the first time to review data. He suggested taking data from one source to maintain accuracy.