Pakistan has allowed exports of an extra 200,000 tonnes of sugar to help cut surplus stocks at home and try to bolster prices, the chief of a producers’ body said on Thursday.

“There was a request to allow exports of 400,000 tonnes but the cabinet gave its permission for 200,000 tonnes,” Shunaid Qureshi, chairman of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association, told Reuters by telephone.

Late last month, Najib Balagawala, chief executive of Pakistan-based SeaTrade group, said the government was likely to give permission to cash-strapped mills in October to export at least 300,000 tonnes of sugar.

Sugar prices in Pakistan are depressed by higher output after ample harvests and the country is set to produce a surplus for a second straight year in a row in the year starting Oct. 1, 2012.

REUTERS