Mills to export 4.3 mn tonne sugar in 2020-21

New Delhi: Sugar mills have contracted to export 4.3 million tonne of sugar so far in the 2020-21 marketing year ending in September, industry body ISMA said on Wednesday.

The government has allowed export of 6 million tonne of sugar under Maximum Admissible Export Quota (MAEQ) during the 2020-21 marketing year to liquidate surplus sugar in global markets.

"Around 4.3 million tonne of export have already been signed," Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said in a statement.

These contracts have been signed in just two-and-half months since the date the export quotas were allocated by the government on December 31, 2020, it said.

As per information collected from ports, 3,18,000 tonne of sugar was exported between October-December 2020 against the quota allocated during the last marketing year.

ISMA said another around 2.2 million tonne of physical exports are expected between January and March this year against shipment quota allocated for the current year.

To support the export programme, the government has allowed swap between MAEQ and domestic quota for the current 2020-21 marketing year, which has received positive response from the millers. So far, 4,70,000 tonne of reallocations have been done by the government.

Further, the government has recently issued a clarification that supply of raw/white sugar to Special Economic Zone refineries will be considered as export under MAEQ for 2020-21 marketing year and is covered under the scheme of providing assistance to sugar mills.

However, the clarification on sugar export to Iran is still awaited from the government, ISMA added.

As per the latest data, sugar production in the country has reached 25.86 million tonne till March 15 of the 2020-21 marketing year, as against 21.61 million tonne in the year-ago period.

Sugar production has reached 9.4 million tonne in Maharashtra, 8.42 million tonne in Uttar Pradesh and 4.13 million tonne in Karnataka. These are three top sugar producing states in the country. ISMA has pegged the country's sugar production at 30.2 million tonne for the 2020-21 marketing year, as against 27.42 million tonne last year.