A number of new measures to aid the fluidity of the European sugar market were passed at the management committee meeting at the European Commission yesterday (12 April).

They are designed to address the problems of fluidity and price, seen in the EU sugar market in recent months, and will be published in the Official Journal in the coming days.
 
The Commission had already announced a move to release a further 250,000 tonnes of out-of-quota sugar on to the EU market at reduced duty.

The reduced duty will be based on the difference between the EU price and the world market price and will be €211 per tonne (p/t) – the difference between the most recent available average monthly EU white sugar price of €701p/t and the average monthly world market price of €490p/t, said the Commission.

The maximum weekly application quantity per operator was fixed at 50,000 tonnes.

The second measure was to advance the three tenders for imports of sugar to 2 May, 23 May and 6 June, from the previously foreseen dates of 6 June, 27 June and 11 July. This will cover all sugar, it said.

Roger Waite, spokesman for Agriculture and Rural Development, said: “The Commission is responding to the continued increase in the internal sugar price, and we will continue to monitor the market closely.”

The meeting yesterday also saw two regulations passed for the 2012/13 marketing year: the opening of 400,000 tonnes of duty-free tariff-rate-quota sugar for industrial purposes, and the fixing of the export limit for out-of-quota sugar at 650,000 tonnes, which it said were standard measures usually taken at this time of year.
 

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