Aquino cool to using sugar as biofuel

BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental — President Benigno S. Aquino III Friday said he prefers to use sugar for food and not for fuel.

At the Philippine Economic Briefing Friday here in Bacolod City, Aquino lauded the Negrenses for the province’s robust sugar industry as well as business process outsourcing (BPO) and the steady growth of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs).

“The bottom line is your economy is booming… the vision of this administration is very clear: where business continues to grow, we need to be sure growth is more widely felt,” Aquino said.

He however said he is not in favor of using sugar for fuel.

“With regards to the biofuels industry, allow me to study it a little further,” he said. “My understanding is if it comes to ethanol, we have to import a significant portion of the ethanol requirement because we are not producing it.”

“Given the high prices of sugar at this point in time, I just want sugar to be produced as food rather than as ethanol,” Aquino said.

Sugar cane is the top product here in the region.

The President said that instead of converting sugar into fuel, other renewable sources of energy may be tapped.