Sugar price rebounds at the end of the year

The price of sugar bounced back in the Yangon market when sugar mills are running at the end of the year 2022.
On 30 December 2022, the price climbed again to K2,650 per viss, whereas it was only K2,580 per viss on 19 December. The market saw an unprecedented increase in sugar prices in 2022. Even though the sugar mills started crushing operations in December, the price increased again.
The sugar was priced below K900 per viss in 2020. The price reached above K1,000 per viss in mid-January 2021 and continued to rise to around K1,400 per viss at the end of August and K2,000 at the end of the year 2021.
The prices of sugar moved up to K2,200 per viss in June 2022 and K2,500 in September.
Myanmar re-exported the imported sugar to China in 2016 and 2017, allowing the sugar traders to do well financially. China banned imports of paddy products and sugar, making sugar and rice bags struck in 2019.
The stockpile of sugar pushed down the price to below K1,000 per viss in 2019. It prompted the sugar millers to reduce the sugarcane price to K40,000 per tonne. The prices of sugarcane were K50,000 per tonne in the 2015-2016 Financial Year and K38,000 per tonne in the 2018-2019 FY.
In 2022, sugar mills offered K90,000 per tonne at the end of the year when the sugar price hit K2,550 per viss. At the end of December, the price of a popular sugar brand hovered around K2,500 per viss.
In 2022, sugar was demanded by foreign markets beyond self-sufficiency. Next year, the prices are expected to stay on upward trends if international sugar price is on the high side and Kyat depreciates against the US dollar.
The annual sugar production is estimated at 500,000 tonnes and local consumption is about 400,000 tonnes for a 54 million population.
The most populous India with over 1 billion population is forecast to produce 36 million tonnes of sugar in the 2022-2023 FY, while local consumption needs 27 million in India.
Normally, the prices of sugar rarely increased when the sugar-crushing mills started running as there were old stocks of sugar in their hands.
At the end of the year 2022, some sugar businesses run out of stock on account of the probability of sugar export and the strong demand of traders who keep the stock in their hands.— TWA/EMM