Mauritius’s Sugar Industry Seen Earning $210 Million This Year

Mauritius’s sugar industry will probably earn 6.6 billion rupees ($210 million) for the 2012 harvest, the country’s sugar syndicate said in its first estimate for the crop.

“Market prices in export destinations appear to have remained firm,” Devesh Dukhira, chief market officer at the Port Louis-based MSS, said in an e-mailed response to questions.

Prices are forecast to be 16,000 rupees a metric ton, little changed from last year, according to Dukhira. About 290,000 tons will be sold to customers of Germany’s Suedzucker AG. (SZU) Another 120,000 tons of specialty sugars will be sold in the European Union, the U.S. and about 20 other countries.

Production is forecast at 410,000 tons, according to the Chamber of Agriculture’s crop estimate committee. That’s a drop of 5.8 percent from last year.

All of the sugar from the 2011 crop was exported in the form of “value-added products, up from 83 percent in 2010 and 43 percent in 2009, he said.

source: bloomberg