India likely to export about 2 mn tonnes sugar in 2015/16

India, the world's second-biggest sugar producer, is likely to export 1.9 million tonnes to 2 million tonnes of sugar in the 2015/16 marketing year started on October 1, a leading trade body said in a statement on Friday.

Sugar mills have so far contracted 1.4 million tonnes for exports and another 500,000 tonnes to 600,000 tonnes could be shipped by September end, the Indian Sugar Mills Association said.

In the current year, so far mills have produced 22.13 million tonnes of sugar, almost steady compared with last year's output of 22.16 million tonnes during the same period, it said.

The first back-to-back drought in nearly three decades has trimmed cane supplies and forced 189 sugar mills to close operations, including 91 mills in top producing western state of Maharashtra, it said.