India to import sugar in 2009-10

India would import sugar in the 2009-10 season, starting October, to tide over a deficit in output, as drought and less stocks from this season have set prices spiralling.

“According to the initial estimate of sugarcane availability during the 2009-10 sugar season, it is expected that the country would require to supplement its domestic availability of sugar with imports,” Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said here today at a conference.

Nevertheless, sugar prices may touch Rs 40 a kg, more than double from a year earlier, when fresh imported consignments land here in the next season, according to National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories President Jayantilal B Patel.

The overseas rate of sugar would spiral upward due to a shortage in major producing countries like India, he observed.

India, the largest sugar consumer in the world, had to import the sweetener in 2008-09 after production fell to about 15 million tonnes (mt) against its annual domestic requirement of 22.5-23 mt.

Worse still, sugar stocks from this season would be significantly lower, compared with those of ten million tonnes from the last season, Pawar said.

“We will be starting the next sugar season from October 1, 2009, with a much smaller opening balance in comparison with the previous year,” he said.