Importers are reluctant to clear their consignments and they may keep on waiting for this unless they get any concession from the SBP on cash margining conditionality.
This situation is obviously extremely painful for importers, who have to pay heavy demurrage on import of sugar due to delay in clearance of consignments, besides bearing loss on imported stocks since its rates in the open market have gone considerably down prior to their reaching there.
An aggrieved importer on Tuesday said: "We do have money to get clear our consignments from port authorities and banks as, according to the new SBP order, they are demanding 50 percent cash for clearance of shipments documents." He added importers can not arrange 50 percent cash financing for new shipments when their pervious imported stocks were lying with them.
Importers have taken up the SBP case for cash financing with policy makers in Islamabad and demanded relaxation in it but they are yet to get any positive response.
The SBP had put the conditionality of 50 percent cash financing for sugar importers last month and also set for them the deadline of July 31 for payment of outstanding loans. This conditionality is equally applicable for sugar mills, which get billions of rupees from commercial banks on seasonal basis and then misuse this facility to hoard their stocks.
The SBP's new measure was meant to discourage hoarding of sugar and force millers having big stocks to offload their position to improve supply situation in the open market.
The step has worked to the expectations of policy-makers as the majority of mill-owners were bringing out their stocks in the open market. But the move has proved equally harmful to importers. They, as on July 25, had 300,000 imported stocks in their godown and their more shipments are reaching Pakistan in next weeks.