London coffee and sugar up

London robusta coffee futures rose on speculative and fund buying and a weaker dollar on Friday, while origin selling dragged on cocoa despite a strike and a separate shooting incident in top producer Ivory Coast.
White sugar closed mostly firmer after speculative and fund buying to square positions before year-end, dealers said. Speculative and fund buying pushed up robustas, with the upside capped by Vietnamese producer selling pressure.
March settled up $17 to $1,889 per tonne in moderate volume of 13,586 lots, having run into heavy resistance at $1,910, a level seen sparking Vietnamese selling. "There is so much managed money out there looking for something to buy," one London dealer said.
A weakening of the dollar after the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto had encouraged speculative buying of dollar-denominated commodities, including robustas and sugar, dealers said. Burundi exported less coffee in December but at firmer prices compared to the previous month following a stronger New York market, a coffee board official said on Friday.
London cocoa futures closed lower after a session featuring origin selling and arbitrage. The second day of an industry strike in Ivory Coast provided background support, although dealers said it was unlikely to have much market impact unless it carried on for some weeks.
Staff at Ivory Coast's Coffee and Cocoa Bourse (BCC) and other industry bodies maintained strike action for a second day on Friday, halting registration of cocoa shipments for export, a union official said.
Rebel forces controlling the northern half of Ivory Coast said on Friday they killed one gunman and captured several others after an attack on one of their patrols in the rebel stronghold of Bouake. May cocoa finished down 8 pounds or 0.93 percent at 1,067 pounds per tonne in light volume of 355 lots. March was the most-active month, settling down 9 pounds at 1,049 pounds per tonne in moderate volume of 2,773 lots.
London white sugar futures rose on speculative and fund buying against producer selling as money managers squared positions before year-end, dealers said. "A weaker dollar is providing more opportunities to buy commodities, including sugar," one trader said.
March closed flat at $315.90 per tonne in moderate volume of 3,214 lots. May settled up 40 cents to $319.80 per tonne in volume of 1,422 lots. Harvesting operations for the new sugar crop began in Jamaica with industry officials expressing optimism that more sugar will be produced this year for export, mainly to European Union markets.
India may raise the size of sugar stocks for which it pays storage costs or extend the time period for which it will pick up the tab to help ailing mills swamped by excess sweetner, a government official said.