Sugar Refiners Say EU Imports Cost Them 35 Million Euros

Europe’s sugar refiners paid an additional 35 million euros ($45 million) in the marketing season that started Oct. 1 to import raw sugar because duty-free shipments have fallen short, an industry group said.

“Our industry has been forced to pay nearly 35 million euros in the last seven days alone to get its hands on raw material supply that its refineries and the market desperately need,” Joao Pereira, president of the Brussels-based European Sugar Refiners’ Association, said in a statement e-mailed today.

The European Union today granted licenses to import 36,000 metric tons of raw sugar at a duty of 263.50 euros a ton, the European Commission, the EU’s regulatory arm, said. Last week, licenses were awarded to import 100,000 tons of the sweetener at a duty of 252.50 euros to 255 euros a ton. The tariff to import from countries that have no preferential agreement with the EU is usually 339 euros a ton. Import tenders at reduced duty were approved Nov. 24 to try to ease shortages.

Refiners have to use the tender system because duty-free supplies that usually come to the EU from the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries and some least developed nations have fallen short of initial estimates, the refiners’ group said.

“Our industry is running at 60 percent capacity and this is just not sustainable,” Pereira said. “Thousands of high- quality European manufacturing jobs in our industry are at stake.”

source: bloomberg