IKAR in Mass and Industry Media

Russia Can Wait Until February to Boost Sugar Imports, Ikar Says

Bloomberg

Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Russia has no need for sizable imports of raw sugar until February as domestic production heads for a record this year, according to the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies.

"Only a tiny stream of imports for industrial consumers, which can satisfy food-production needs with raw sugar only because of technological peculiarities, will start flowing to Russia in December,'' Evgeny Ivanov, an analyst at Ikar, as the Moscow-based institute is known, said by phone today. "Massive raw-sugar imports are expected not earlier than February.''

Russia is set to produce 4.3 million metric tons of sugar from domestic beets this year, according to Ivanov. Inbound deliveries will be limited until February to one to two cargoes a month at most, each amounting to between 25,000 and 50,000 tons, he said. Processing locally grown beets will require domestic refiners to use all their capacity, the analyst said.

"Russia cannot refine more, being limited by the current technological level,'' Ivanov said. "Greater output requires investments.''

Raw-sugar imports came to almost 1.97 million tons from March through July, when the import duty was lower, according to Ikar. That was up from 1.55 million tons a year earlier, Ivanov said. The figures cover actual unloading of cargoes for Russian consumers in all of the country's ports and those in the Baltic states as well as Odessa in Ukraine, he said.

Total raw-sugar imports into Russia reached 2.2 million tons from January through the end of July, according to Ivanov. Russia started refining domestic beets this month to produce its own sweetener, he said.

31.08.11

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