Keeping an eye on the sugar market

Sugar did not experience the massive price spike in 2007-08 of other commodities, but has been making up for this with a tremendous increase in prices in 2009, driven by poor harvests in Brazil (the world’s largest producer) and strong import demand in India (the world’s largest importer). Raw sugar prices have risen from around 10 USc/lb in May 2008 to over 27 USc/lb currently, and market analysts expect further increases in the coming months.

The increase in world prices means that world prices are now above the (much reduced after the recent sugar reform) EU reference price. Recent price trends are shown in the following figure, reproduced from the SugarTraders website

sugarprices

Despite the very tight global market, EU sugar beet supplies have moved in the opposite direction.… Read the rest