In April, Ukrainian producers exported 9.1 thousand tons of sugar, down 2-fold MoM (19.6 thousand tons).
“At the end of March, we saw some recovery on the London Stock Exchange. As a result, the demand for Ukrainian sugar grew slightly and producers were able to supply almost 20,000 tons of sugar to the foreign markets to which we exported one or two years ago: Libya (7,000 tons), Turkey (4,800 tons) and Palestine (3.7 thousand tons). But in April, the world situation, COVID-19 pandemic and the exchange rate change created unfavorable conditions for Ukrainian producers, so we returned to the usual volumes for the month – 9,1 thousand tons”, explained Nazar Mikhaylovyn, the “Ukrsugar” analyst.
In April, geography of sugar deliveries hardly changed: Turkey – 5.7 thousand tons, Libya – 0.8 thousand tons, Moldova and Romania – 0.6 thousand tons each.
During eight months of the current marketing year, Ukrainian producers exported 76.4 thousand tons of sugar, down almost 4-fold YoY.
“This is a fairly predictable figure, as most of “our” markets are occupied by Russian sugar as overproduction and convenient logistics to Central Asian countries make it more profitable. Thus, for example, Uzbekistan has lifted the duty on sugar deliveries, but the price of Ukrainian sugar is higher than Russian one precisely because of transportation costs. Taking into account all these factors, sugar export is expected at the level of 120 thousand tons in 2019-2020 MY, although at the beginning of the year the export potential was estimated at more than 300 thousand tons”, summed up the analyst. (Ukrsugar/Business World Magazine)