Booming sales buoy Indian sugar

Asia can become a major player in the world sugar sector over the next 15 years as the consumption is growing at the fastest rate in the world, according to M. Manickam, vice chairman and managing director, Sakthi Sugars.

India's sugar market was worth Rs 23,400 crore. While the export market is Rs 1000 crore, the market for ethanol and power was worth Rs 525 crore and Rs 300 crore respectively.

The current usage of ethanol was 300 million litre, but has the potential to go up to 6,000 million litre with the right policy support.

"While Brazil is the largest producer of sugar, India has the largest area under sugarcane. It also has the largest number of consumers with the total consumption at about 18 million tonne to 19 million tonne," said Manickam at the recently held sugar summit.

In 2000, while the total consumption in South Asia stood at 26.7 million tonne (MT) it is projected to go up to 29.5 MT by 2015 and further to 32.2 MT in 2030.

This will contribute largely to the spurt in consumption in Asia. The total world consumption is projected to grow at a much slower rate from 24 MT (2000) to 25.1 MT (2015), and touch 26.3 MT by 2030.

It was also projected that the consumption of sugar among the developing countries will increase about 9 per cent by 2015 and further by about 8 per cent by 2030. The developed countries on the other hand will see a minor decline of about 2 per cent by 2015 and further 1.2 per cent by 2030.

Manickam said that while the US and India have the maximum arable land at 181 million hectare and 169 million hectare respectively, in US at least 50 million hectare is a single crop land. "India in comparison has 1 1/2 times the landmass available for agriculture," he said.

He said there was wide scope for growth in the world demand as well as exports in the future, especially with the fastest consumption growth in the developing countries.

He however said that export earnings in India are being curbed by restricted market access.