The government permits one metric ton of sugar exports.

Following a review of local supply, the government approved the export of one million tonnes (MT) of sugar on Monday for the current 2024–25 (October–September) season. The sweetener’s exports had been prohibited since the previous season.

A notification from the food ministry states that “export quotas of 1 MT have been pro-rated among those sugar mills which operated in at least one sugar season among the last three sugar seasons by taking into account their average production of sugar during the last three operational sugar seasons — 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24.”

The government has not set aside any quota for sugar exports since India exported 6 MT of sugar during the 2022–2023 season.

Based on their production capacity, the ministry divided the 518 mills’ share of the sugar export quota. A consistent export quota of 3.174% of the sugar mills’ average output of sweeteners over the previous three years has been given to them.

In anticipation of a higher harvest and more comfortable opening inventories, ISMA had encouraged the government to permit about 2 MT of sugar exports during the current sugar season so that mills wouldn’t have to pay the carrying costs of excess sweetness.

The food ministry projects that domestic consumption will be 27 MT and sugar production will be approximately 32 MT during the 2024–25 sugar season. Four metric tons of sugar have been set aside by the government to be used in the production of ethanol.

On October 1, 2024, the opening stock of sugar was 7.9 MT, compared to the food ministry’s recommended safety net of 5.5 MT. 32 MT of sugar are expected to be produced in 2023–2024.

Because they are closely monitoring the supply situation as sugarcane crushing has begun, the food ministry has decided not to provide any quotes for sugar export in the current season at the start of the current fiscal year.

Compared to the previous year, 5.76 million hectares of sugarcane were sown during the most recent kharif season. Previously, sugar was shipped to Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates from India, the world’s second-largest producer of sweeteners after Brazil. For the past several years, sugar inflation has been in the single digits.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *