
Photo: VCG
The government of Guangxi autonomous region in southern China Monday officially handed over pricing of sugar cane to the market, completing a pullout of government control over the price of the raw material of sugar.
According to a document released Monday, the Guangxi government will no longer offer any guidance to the market on the price of sugar cane starting this year. Guangxi, one of China’s biggest sugar cane-producing provinces, is the last one to remove government price controls.
A central government policy in 2011 required governments of major sugar production provinces to set up a government-backed material pricing system. However, this exposed farmers and sugar producers to risks of increasing price fluctuation as the sugar market opened to the outside world. Since 2015, governments in major sugar cane production provinces including Zhanjiang, Hainan and Yunnan, have gradually eased government price controls.
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