• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Harish Damodaran

New Delhi , Sept. 29

AFTER Maharashtra, it is the turn of mills in Uttar Pradesh to get into the duty-free raw sugar import act.

The Indian Sugar Exim Corporation (ISEC) has contracted a fresh raw sugar cargo of 40,000 tonnes of Brazilian origin scheduled for October-November delivery at Kandla port. The contracted price for the tender, which was finalised on Monday night, is said to be around $233 per tonne c.i.f (cost, insurance, freight).

The entire quantity has been contracted on behalf of mills in UP. The importers, trade sources said, include Balrampur Chini, Dhampur Sugar and the K.K. Birla Group.

The latest import contract follows an earlier tender on September 13 of ISEC — a trading joint venture of the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) and the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Ltd (NFCSFL) — for import of 25,000 tonnes. This quantity, also of Brazilian origin, was booked entirely on behalf of Maharashtra mills for October delivery at $223.25 per tonne c.i.f, Mumbai port.

The scramble for importing raw sugar at zero duty under the advance licence scheme comes in the light of the Government recently allowing mills to sell the processed white sugar in the domestic market. While mills would still have to export white sugar within 24 months of undertaking the imports, they can, however, do so by processing domestically sourced sugarcane rather than the originally imported raw sugar.

The sources said that processing raw sugar for sale in the domestic market makes good business in the current scenario.

The cost of processing raw sugar imported at $233 per tonne c.i.f would work out to about Rs 1,400 per quintal for a mill in Maharashtra, while it will be 1,450 per quintal for a factory in UP.

The cost would be around Rs 100 per quintal lower if the raw sugar is mixed along with the cane juice during the crushing season, as mills can use the steam generated from baggase instead of running a stand-alone coal-fired boiler in the off-season.

On the other hand, domestic ex-factory realisations on white sugar are currently ruling at about Rs 1,500 per quintal in the North and Rs 1,425-1,450 per quintal in the West. "If mills use the imported raw sugar for processing along with the regular cane juice during the regular crushing season, they stand to make a profit of about Rs 1.50 for every kg of white sugar sold domestically", the sources added.

More Stories on : Sugar | Exports & Imports

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Haryana to write off `taccavi' loans

Copyright © 2004, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line