News
04.03.2010
EU boosts sugar exports as prices soar
The EU plans to export an extra 500,000 tonnes of sugar because world sugar prices have soared and European beet farmers have surpluses. The European Commission says the export of extra, unsubsidised sugar will not violate international trade rules. It says the measure is temporary. The EU’s annual limit for subsidised sugar exports is 1.37m tonnes, under World Trade Organization agreements. Brazil’s sugarcane group Unica has told the EU not to exceed 1.37m tonnes. But the Commission’s agriculture spokesman Michael Mann told that «the export limit doesn’t apply» to the extra 500,000 tonnes, because this extra is unsubsidised sugar. He said that if sugar production costs were higher than the sale price, global competitors might argue that this amounted to an indirect EU subsidy. «But the production cost is below the sale price,» he said. «People on the world market are crying out for sugar and we’ve got too much of it.» Extraordinary times A Commission statement described current world market conditions for sugar as «exceptional». «With production below consumption and diminishing sugar stocks, sugar prices have risen to unprecedented levels, to the detriment of consumers in poorer countries,» the Commission says. Bad weather in India and Brazil has further diminished sugar stocks, pushing up prices, whereas «a very good harvest in the EU in 2009 led to the production of higher than expected quantities of
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