Russia's domestic sugar market faces a surplus if its farmers increase sugar beet sowing area in 2016, Andrey Bodin, the head of the country's Sugar Producers' Union, told a conference on Thursday. Russia has been increasing domestic sugar production in recent years as it aims to become self-sufficient instead of being a major global importer.
"If our farmers sow more, then we may have an overproduction on our market," Bodin said. He reckons CIS countries could reduce their raw and white sugar imports by 17 percent to 1.6 million tonnes of raw sugar and 355,000 tonnes of white sugar in 2016 as raw sugar demand is expected to fall in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan.
He did not give an estimate for the 2016/17 marketing season, which starts on October 1. The CIS, Moscow-dominated grouping of a number of former Soviet countries, is forecast to produce 7.9 million tonnes of beet sugar in 2016, up 9 percent on last year, Bodin said. Production in Russia is expected to increase to 5.5 million tonnes from 5.2 million. Ukraine is expected to raise output to 1.7 million tonnes from 1.5 million, while Belarus's production is expected to rise to 550,000 tonnes from 490,000 tonnes.
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