Russia could boost sugar production 1.8-fold to 370,000 tonnes in Aug - union of sugar producers

MOSCOW. Aug 9 (Interfax) - Russia could increase production of sugar 1.8-fold to 370,000 tonnes in August compared to 201,000 tonnes the year before, according to Union of Russian Sugar Producers experts.

According to the union, 29 sugar refineries will be working in August, including 14 in the Southern Federal District, 12 in the Central Federal District, and one each in the Volga Region, the North Caucasus, and Siberia.

Seven sugar refineries are currently processing the new harvest of sugar beets and shipping sugar. They are all located in the Krasnodar Territory. In the past week, 25,000 tonnes of sugar have been produced, 11,000 tonnes more than in the same period of last year, and around 4,000 tonnes of sugar have been produced from raw sugar.

Processing of the new harvest of sugar beets began on August 1. Sugar beets were sown over an area of 1.034 million hectares in Russia this year, up 2.8%. Production of sugar beets is projected at 5% more than last year, which will allow for the production of enough beet sugar to meet the demands of the Russian market, as well as those of the Eurasian Economic Union countries, the union said earlier.

According to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), Russia harvested 41.2 million tonnes of sugar beets last year compared to 32.4 million tonnes in 2020.

The Union of Russian Sugar Producers earlier projected that 6 million tonnes of sugar beets would be produced in the 2022-2023 agricultural year running from August to July.