Rising sugar prices are threatening to make the coming festival season bitter and are causing concerns for many consumers.
Moreover, in order to meet increasing demand, India will be forced to import sugar in large quantities and this in all possibility will further increase sugar prices.
However, local production has plunged to 14.5 million tonnes in the 2008-09 with demand at 23 million tonnes, the deadline for duty-free raw sugar imports has been extended by nine months to December 2010.
Additionally, the government is going to start a fortnightly sale of non-levy sugar with the September quota set at 2.11 lakh tonnes
This year most deficits have been met by opening stocks and next year they’ll need much larger imports of about 6 million tonnes of raw sugar and 1 million tonnes of white sugar.
Moreover, nearly 4 million tonnes of sugar have been already purchased by the Indian industry, while India’s sugar shopping spree abroad has sent prices of refined sugar in the global market skyrocketing.
Additionally, it is said that the world market has recorded a 28-year high and has shot up 60% to $610 per tonne in August 2009 from a level of $380 per tonne in October 2008.
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