India's October-December sugar output rises 6.7 percent on year as mills start early: trade body

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian sugar mills produced 11.05 million tonnes of the sweetener between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, up 6.7 percent from a year earlier, as mills started crushing earlier than usual in the western state of Maharashtra, a producers' body said on Friday.

Maharashtra, the country's second-biggest producer, churned out 4.4 million tonnes of sugar during the period, up 14.6 percent from a year ago, the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said in a statement.

Output in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, the country's biggest producer of sugar, stood at 3.1 million tonnes, down nearly 7 percent from a year ago.

India, the world's biggest sugar consumer, is likely to produce 31.5 million tonnes to 32 million tonnes of the sweetener in the 2018/19 marketing year that started on Oct. 1, more than local demand of around 26 million tonnes, the ISMA estimates.

(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)