Sugar futures fall to 5-month low on India export outlook

Forexpros - Sugar futures were down for a second day on Wednesday, falling to a five-month low after India approved an increase in exports, while fears over a slowdown in demand from top consumer China also weighed.

On the ICE Futures U.S. Exchange, sugar futures for March delivery traded at USD0.2327 a pound during European afternoon trade, slumping 0.58%.

It earlier fell by as much as 0.75% to trade at USD0.2325 a pound, the lowest since June 2.

India's Industry Minister Anand Sharma said earlier that the country will export an additional one million tonnes of sugar in the 2011-12 marketing season, doubling expectations of 500,000 tonnes.

The increase in exports will bring total Indian sugar shipments to a four-year high, underlining the view that global supplies are ample.

India is the world's second largest sugar producer. It exported approximately 2.6 million tons of the sweetener in the 2010-11 marketing year.

The news prompted global financial service provider Societe Generale to lift its estimate for global sugar supply surplus in the 2011-12 season to 4.4 million tons, up from a surplus of 840,000 tons last season.

Sugar prices have declined in seven of the last nine trading sessions and have lost nearly 8% since the beginning of November, as increasing competition for U.S. exports has been dominating sentiment in recent weeks.

Sugar prices came under additional pressure after a preliminary reading of the HSBC China purchasing managers' index fell to a contractionary reading of 48.0 in November, down from 51.0 in October.

It was the lowest level since March 2009, renewing fears over an economic ‘hard landing'.

China is the world's largest sugar consumer. The country imported 1.6 million tons of the sweetener in the first 11 months of 2011.

Meanwhile, a broadly stronger U.S. dollar also weighed. The dollar index, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of six other major currencies, was up 0.77% to trade at 79.01.

Elsewhere on the ICE Futures Exchange, cotton futures for March delivery slipped 0.2% to trade at USD0.9092 a pound, while Arabica coffee for March delivery shed 0.24% to trade at USD2.3603 a pound.


Forexpros - Forexpros offers a diverse set of professional tools for Forex, Futures and CFDs. These include real-time data streams, technical and fundamental analysis by in-house experts, and a widely used economic calendar and Forex News .