An emergent general body meeting of Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) Punjab zone adopted a resolution to inform the federal government that duty on export of molasses should not be introduced at this stage. Chairman PSMA, Punjab zone Javed Kayani said that there are about 18 distilleries in the country and 82 sugar mills operating at present. He said the ethanol manufacturers were trying to portray a gloomy picture about non-availability of molasses, which was ill founded. He alleged, “Ethanol manufacturers want to cartelise the purchase of molasses thereby depriving the sugar mills to earn extra revenue and consequently depriving the government from earning foreign exchange. He said funds retrieved from sale of molasses are deployed for payments to growers because molasses is the major component of sales. Therefore restricting the export of molasses would jeopardise the payments to growers, which were supplemented by the sale of bye-products. Government has still not allowed the blending of ethanol by replacing MTBE as oxygenator, therefore until the blending of ethanol is made mandatory only then the government should review introducing duty on export of molasses. The prime importers of molasses are major European countries where the molasses is used for cattle feed. He said most of the sugar mills are GMP (Good Management Practices) compliant and they have made major investments to keep molasses free of contamination to meet International Quality Standards. PSMA appealed to the government not to budge against unrealistic demand of ethanol manufacturers. PSMA also wants to register its concern about import of sugar as discussed in a recent meeting of ECC. The benchmark should be followed for the cost of sugar production also because the industry is buying sugarcane at Rs 125 per 40 kg due to shortage of sugarcane and with high financial costs and mark-up rates of 20 percent it has become very difficult to achieve the cost of production of sugar.