Indonesia emerges largest buyer of India sugar in first quarter of 2021, says AISTA

All India Sugar Traders Association (AISTA) has claimed that India has dispatched 55% of the sugar export quota announced by the Union government under the Maximum Admissible Export Quota (MAEQ) 2020-21 scheme. So far, during the first three months since the scheme became applicable, Indonesia has emerged as the top importer of Indian sugar accounting for 38% share of the total sugar dispatched.

Indian government had announced a scheme in January 2021 to incentivise exports and thus reduce the surplus sugar in the domestic market. The scheme was meant to help the sugarcane growing farmers as it assumed that the sugar mills will pay their bills on time when the sugar prices in the domestic market improve on clearing the excess stocks. However, the arrears of sugarcane farmers continue to rule high in the top two sugar producing states of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

According to AISTA, as on April 9, India has moved 15 lakh tonnes of raw sugar, 9.5 lakh tonnes of white sugar and 37,000 tonnes of refined sugar; with the total sugar stock in transit and delivered to port based refinery accounting for about 28 lakh tonnes. Sugar that is under loading for export or nominated for export is little over 5 lakh tonnes.


The top 6 export destinations for India sugar till April are Indonesia (38.5%), Afghanistan (12.3%), Srilanka (9.9%), UAE (9%), Somalia (7.6%) and Bangladesh (5.6%). Quoting market sources, AISTA press note has said that the country has contracted for export of 49 lakh tonnes of sugar.