The European Commission has proposed leaving the EU sugar production quota unchanged for the 2004/05 marketing year, member state officials said on Friday, as global sugar export limits would not be exceeded.
The EU executive made the suggestion affecting "A" and "B" quota sugar, which receive EU subsidies, at a meeting of sugar officials from the 25-nation bloc on Thursday.
The EU has a 17.4 million tonne "A" and "B" sugar quota for 2004/05. It also has a 0.5 million tonne isoglucose quota and a 0.3 million tonne inulin syrup quota. Both production and consumption are forecast to equal 19.7 million tonnes.
"These are early estimates," said a member state official. "If the total amount (of sugar) available is the same as the total amount needed...(we) don't need a quota cut."
The final sugar production quota will be set in September.
Under World Trade Organisation rules, the EU must limit sugar export refunds to 499.1 million euros, allowing the sale of approximately 1.2 million tonnes of EU sugar globally.
Under the Commission projections, this limit would not be breached so no quota cut would be required, officials said.
A quota reduction of 206,646 tonnes was agreed for the 2003/04 marketing year, a fall of roughly 1.4 percent from the previous season. The EU's sugar marketing year begins on July 1.
Comments
Comments are closed.