“Gray sugar”, hit to the treasury for 4,000 million pesos

Around 4 billion pesos manage to evade smugglers who introduce “gray sugar” from Guatemala into Mexico.

It is popularly known as “gray sugar” and its illegal introduction into the country is called by the government as technical contraband.

This is a practice with which a small group simulates the importation of supposed food preparations that are exempt from tariffs, when in reality it is sugar combined with activated carbon. That way they avoid paying the $ 360 per ton tariff.

Later with another industrial process they reconvert it into sugar and sell it at prices below what is traded in the national market.

For the 2020/2021 production cycle, national sugar sales fell 4% due to the problem of technical smuggling of the product in the country, according to figures from the National Chamber of Sugar and Alcohol Industries (CNIAA).

This percentage is in addition to the 2% annual fall that the industry has been registering due to the constant attacks on sugar consumption, related to health issues, and which in the last decade accumulates 20%.

Humberto Jasso Torres, executive president of the CNIAA, warns that sugar with activated carbon is toxic and has to be processed in liquid sugar factories or others.

It requires the authority to investigate thoroughly and act with the full force of the law throughout the entire chain of illegality.

It is necessary to punish from importers, processors and those who buy that merchandise that enters the country as smuggled.

It recognizes that the private sector has worked in coordination for the investigation and detection of these smuggling activities.

The Tax Administration Service (SAT), Customs, and other government entities have participated.

And the Cofepris has already been asked to intervene.

However, the businessman says that a decision at the highest level is necessary to be able to stop the smuggling of gray sugar.

This is undoubtedly a serious problem.

It goes directly against public finances because evasion damages public revenues.

In addition to affecting the interests of the sugarcane agroindustrial sector, and the finances of the 49 mills.

But it also directly affects the employment of more than 185,000 sugarcane growers and the rural employment chain.

At the time.

Glimpses

HUCACHICOL.- The unfortunate explosion that occurred yesterday in the municipality of San Pablo Xochimehuacan, Puebla, with human and material damage (death, injuries and 2,000 evacuees), contradicts the official narrative that the huachicol would have been eradicated.

The dimension of the tragedy makes it clear that unfortunately the illicit activity continues to be carried out with all the economic damage that affects the oil company and the social risk that it entails.

It confirms that one is the harsh reality and the other is the official discourse.

FORGET.- Tremendous “magnifying glass” decided to place the director of the IMSS, Zoe Robledo, to the management of investment risks of its reserves and the actuarial risks that could harm the financial situation of the insurance that the institution manages.

The Director of Finance, Marco Aurelio Ramírez Corzo, proposed the creation of the Financial and Actuarial Risks Commission to institutionalize the identification, measure, monitor, limit, control and disclose the risks to which the institution is exposed in the exercise of its functions. Why is it important? It is important because IMSS financial reserves represent 48% of its total assets.

It is relevant because it is part of the administration of the IMSS’s own income, of which 93 percent are made up of worker-employer quotas plus the contribution of the federal government.

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