Indian sugar futures rise

Indian sugar futures rose on Monday after monsoon rains disrupted physical supplies and triggered short-covering in a market that had fallen about 1.5 percent last week. At 2:40 pm (0910 GMT), the August contract was up 0.63 percent at 1,285 rupees ($31.8) per 100 kg. The September contracts rose 0.85 percent to 1,311 rupees.
Amol Tiles, analyst at Kodak Commodity Services Ltd, said rains in western state of Maharashtra, India's largest sugar producer, had disrupted supplies causing a mismatch to meet retail demand.
However, the rise in futures prices will be short-lived because of an expected large crop, analysts said. India is likely to produce 28.5 million tonnes of sugar in the year to September 2007, up from 19.3 million tonnes a year. The country consumes 19-20 million tonnes annually.