With sugar prices touching Rs 30 per kg and pulses averaging Rs 75-95 per kg, the government appears to be relying heavily on imports to ease the crisis. But the very thought of the world’s largest consumer of sugar and pulses coming to shop has sent international markets into a frenzy.
On the New York-based International Commodity Exchange (ICE), sugar futures for October delivery broke a 28-year barrier on Friday, reaching 20.81 cents a pound. In London, the futures price rose to $537.2 per metric ton, the highest since 1983. Sugar trailed only gasoline and copper in terms of the year-to-date returns (read the rise in prices in the last 12 months ) among futures in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials. Analysts are unanimous that this price rise is being driven by reports of monsoon failure in the sugarcane-producing north Indian plains. T he Food and Agriculture Organisation’s latest Global Food Outlook report predicts that sugarcane production could slide by as much as 45% in India this year, forcing it to look for at least 3 million tonnes of sugar in the international market. Although pulses are not traded in international futures markets, their prices too have been sky-rocketing in Canada, Australia, Myanmar and Turkey, the main exporters to India. World production of pulses has been stagnating at about 56 million tonnes for several years. Consumption of pulses has increased in developed countries and declined in the developing world. Global sugar production is predicted to decline by about 5.4%, mainly because less will be produced in India, Pakistan, Australia, the European Union and the US. This decline has been partly offset by a 29% increase in sugar production in Brazil, the world’s largest producer. Bloomberg says sugar has surged 76% this year on the ICE in anticipation of rising Indian imports. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""GLOBAL SPECULATORS"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalspeculators?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
