The government will soon take a decision on exporting 18,000 tonne of sugar to the US and the European Union (EU) in 2011-12 marketing season ending September, Food Minister KV Thomas said today.
"We will be taking a decision on export of 10,000 tonne of sugar to the EU and around 8,000 tonne to the US soon," Thomas told reporters here.
Sugar exports to the US and the EU is made under 'preferential quota' arrangements.
In the last marketing season (2010-11), the government had exported 10,000 tonne of sugar to the EU and 8,200 tonne to the US.
Earlier this month, an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Food, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, had approved export of one million tonne of sugar under the Open General License (OGL) scheme as the country's sugar output is expected to exceed the domestic demand by 3-4 million tonne.
Sugar production in India -- the world's second largest producer and biggest consumer -- is estimated at 25-26 million tonne this marketing year. The country consumes around 22 million tonne of the sweetener annually.
