In view of the nationwide lockdown imposed by the government for preventing the spread of the deadly COVID-19, industry body, Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) has said that India's sugar sales in both domestic and overseas markets have taken a beating. However, fall in overseas sales of sugar during the lockdown is expected to ‘partially or largely’ get compensated by the extra sales to Indonesia, which is likely to meet its sugar demand from India in view of shortages in Thailand.
It highlighted that the exports have been affected due to sudden drop in global sugar prices, but the recent depreciation of rupee is giving some relief to the exporters. Also, Indian sugar will be in very high demand in Indonesia after it opened its market by giving preferential lower customs duty along with Thailand and Australia. It added that the country's total sugar production has reached 24.78 million tonne till April 15 of the 2019-20 marketing year (October-September), down by 20% from 31.17 million tonne in the year-ago period.
The industry body also mentioned that Indian exporters would have more sugar for shipments after the government reallocated the unexported quota fixed for the current year. For the current year, the government has allowed export of 6 million tonne of sugar under the quota to help deal with the surplus sugar.
On domestic sugar sales, it said sales and despatches of sugar have got ‘affected’ due to the countrywide lockdown. Closure of restaurants, malls, movie halls among other public premises has in turn impacted the demand for sugar sweetened products like ice cream, beverages, juices, confectionaries, sweets, etc. ISMA further said the domestic pipeline, which usually holds 10-15 lakh tons of sugar, is expected to have dried up during the lockdown, when sugar in the pipeline got used up.