Guatemalan sugar exports fall

Guatemala exported 91,706 tonnes of sugar in September, down almost 23 percent from the same month last year, the country's sugar producers association Asazgua told Reuters on Friday. During the 2008-09 harvest season, which began in November, Guatemala exported 1,222,988 tonnes, down nearly 6 percent from the same period in the year-ago cycle.
Guatemala, Central America's largest sugar producer, is expected to export 1.58 million tonnes of sugar in the full 2008-09 harvest while total production is estimated at 2.22 million tonnes with the difference consumed internally. Guatemala's major buyers for sugar exports are the US, Canada and Mexico, Korea, China and Taiwan and some Latina American countries.
Big shortfalls in major sugar producers India and Brazil have sent world sugar prices recently to multi-decade highs, sending sugar importers scrambling to find enough supply to meet demand.