India to turn sugar exporter next year, says Pawar

India, the biggest sugar buyer, may become a net exporter next year as output is likely to exceed demand for the first time in three years, pressuring prices.

“Forget about imports, we will be in a position to export next year,” Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said in an interview today. Production “may exceed” annual demand of about 23 million tonnes, he said.

India became a net buyer of the commodity since 2008 after sugar cane growers switched to planting wheat and oilseeds, and last year’s drought ravaged crops, pushing prices in New York to a 29-year high in February. Increased production from the Asian country may weigh on prices that have plunged 43 per cent this year on bets that rising supplies will erase a global deficit.

Raw sugar for July delivery rose 0.4 per cent to 15.21 cents a pound in after-hours trading on ICE Futures US Futures lost 8.7 per cent in April for a third straight monthly decline, the longest slump since 2008, amid bets global output will rebound.

Global sugar production may exceed demand by 6 million tons in 2010-11, the first surplus in three years, Sucres et Denrees SA said April 30. The International Sugar Organization forecasts an 8 million-tonne shortfall in the 12 months ending September.

Cane plantings in the nation’s main growing states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka have been “very good,” said Pawar at his office in New Delhi. India, the biggest producer after Brazil, may halt imports as output this year may top an industry forecast, Vivek Saraogi, managing director at Balrampur Chini Mills, the nation’s second-biggest producer, told analysts today.

Imports double
Mills and traders have imported about 3.5 million tonnes in the season that started October 1, more than twice the amount from a year ago, Narendra Murkumbi, managing director of Shree Renuka Sugars, India’s top refiner, said in an interview April 29.

Purchases in the next six months may not exceed 1 million tonnes as traders hold off imports amid falling local prices, he said.

Prices in Mumbai, India’s biggest wholesale market for the commodity, have fallen 29 per cent from a record Rs 4,050 a quintal on January 8 after the government extended duty-free imports of white sugar until December 31.

The government will consider reinstating the tax only after assessing cane production, Pawar said today.