EXCLUSIVE-India seals first big sugar import deal in 2 years

Reuters) - India, importing sugar for the first time in more than two years, has signed deals to buy about 350,000 tonnes of raw sugar from Brazil, and traders are in talks with Thailand and Brazil to bring in another 700,000-800,000 tonnes, a senior industry official said on Wednesday.

"Sugar mills in the state of Andhra Pradesh have been the first ones to move and have recently started signing deals to import, as the crop in the southern region has collapsed," Madhav B. Sriram, director of DCM Shriram Industries Ltd, a leading Indian sugar producer, told Reuters in an interview.

"Southern Indian mills have already signed deals to import about 350,000 tonnes of Brazilian raw sugar and coastal states are now in talks with Thailand and Brazil to import another 700,000-800,000 tonnes of raws," he said on the sidelines of a biofuels and ethanol conference in Singapore.

While the amount that has already been contracted are for arrivals in November and December, the additional purchases, which Indian traders are eyeing, are for shipments between November and March, he added. He declined to give price details.

India has been flooding the world market in recent years with sugar exports after plentiful harvests, but erratic weather is expected to sharply cut output in the South Asian nation in the new crop season.