The global production forecast for the 2011/12 marketing year has remained unchanged since May 2011. It is equal to 168M tons, which is 4% more than in 2010. Nevertheless, it should be noted that along with the optimistic forecast, Brazil’s 10% production decline will be compensated by the EU, Russia and Thailand. Brazil’s harvest has been affected by last year’s drought and this year’s heavy rains. The sugar output is expected to reach 30.65M tons as opposed to May’s forecast 31,87 tons.
The consequences of the recent floods in Thailand now seem to be not as serious as they expected. A considerable increase in the sown area (+2.6%) up to 1.3M hectares will allow Thailand to gather 105M tons.
In order to satisfy the demand for sugar and to ensure the stability of the European sugar market, the Euro Commission decided to expand the sown are of sugar beet by 4% up to 3890 hectares. Besides, this summer’s weather conditions favored the crops, thus making it possible to gather the most abundant harvest of sugar beet in 6 years.
The USDA’s new forecasts tell us about the reduction of supplies of raw sugar in the 2011/12 marketing year by 138K tons. Besides, the USDA has recently increased the forecast for sugar imports by 189K tons. The import from Mexico is equal to 63K tons. The consumption of sugar in the US is expected to grow by 100K tons in the 2011/12 marketing year.
The forecast for the production of sugar beet has been reduced by 125K tons. Earlier this year the court ordered to destroy thousands of tons of genetically modified sugar beet. That is why the USA is currently having difficulty producing enough sugar.
The global consumption of sugar is expected to stay around 159M tons, which is 2M tons less than it was stated in May’s forecast because of the production decline in Brazil and India.
