SA Sugar Association executive director Trix Trikam is pleading with government for another five years before effecting an increase in sugar tax.The SA Sugar Association has pleaded with government not to increase the Health Promotion Levy - colloquially referred to as the sugar tax - which the organisation says has already had devastating effects on the sugar industry.
According to Trikam, the industry was immediately hard hit by the introduction of the sugar tax in 2018. The sugar tax was intended to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, but it also required beverage producers to reformulate the product recipes and replace cane sugar with alternative or artificial sweeteners.
Head of agri-socio economics at the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy Sandy Jackson concurred with Trikam and said that an ideal situation for the sugar industry was having the sugar tax remain the same. "We know it will not be scrapped so the best would be for it to remain as is." "If there were changes to the threshold of the sugar tax that triggered beverage companies to reformulate, the view is that it would be a short-term change from this year to 2025, meaning for the next two years, there would be a 160 000 ton reduction in demand for refined white sugar from beverage companies.
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