US raises India's sugar import quota

In a bid to ease a supply shortage of sugar amid surging retail prices, the US has boosted its import quota for raw sugar by 120,000 tonnes including 1,421 tonnes from India.

With the addition of 120,000 tonnes to the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) for the 2011 fiscal year ending Sep 30, the quota now totals 1.676 million tonnes, the US Department of Agriculture said Wednesday.

Sugar is the only major agricultural commodity produced in the US that is subject to import quotas. The limits were established to benefit domestic growers. Mexico became exempt from the quota in 2008 under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Announcing country-specific allocations of additional in-quota quantity of the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) for imported raw cane sugar, the US Trade Representative (USTR) said TRQs allow countries to export specified quantities of a product to the US at a relatively low tariff, but subject all imports of the product above a pre-determined threshold to a higher tariff.

One of the major responsibilities of Dr Bakshi has been in designing the Organisational and Business Restructuring of NABARD and spearheading initiatives in Cooperative portfolios, Core Banking Solutions for Cooperative Banks, rural infrastructure and direct financing. He has also headed the Kerala and Tamil Nadu Regional Offices of NABARD. Dr Bakshi was member of the Team that designed and replicated the ‘Self Help Groups (SHGs) – Bank Linkage Programme’ which is today the largest and fastest growing microFinance Programme of the World. He was also associated with the Committee on Cooperative Credit Structuring set up by the Centre. under Prof. Vaidyanathan and has negotiated with the GoI, ADB, World Bank and KfW for funding the legal and institutional reforms for rural cooperatives, the release said.