Oil? China faces great shortage of sugar
Nation faces great shortage of sugar
www.chinaview.cn 2005-10-26 11:24:32
NANNING, Oct. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- The Chinese appetite for sweets, larger as a result of improved living standards, could be dented by a gaping shortage in the sugar supply.
The country's fast-growing consumption has drastically pushed demand for sugar and put supply in great shortage in the coming year as production falls, officials said.
Official statistics predict the country will need extra 2 million tons of sugar, in addition to its production expectation of 9.5 million tons this year. The country's total demand for the 2005-2006 refining season will stand at 11.5 million tons.
Soaring demand by China's prosperous food industries and outputfalls in sugar cane are to blame, according to Feng Zuhua, the top economic official at China's biggest sugar cane producer, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
The region accounts for 60 percent of China's annual output of sugar cane, a major source for sugar. The cane is mainly planted in southern provinces. Sugar beets are harvested in northeastern provinces and northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
In recent years, however, major sugar cane producers like Guangxi, Guangdong and Fujian provinces have suffered falling yields because of successive natural disasters and acreage reductions.
In Guangxi alone, sugar cane plantations were cut by 57,000 hectares, as growers are increasingly turning to plant other cash crops that may bring them more revenues.
Plantation cutting, together with lingering droughts, has caused a plunge of 4.2 million tons in sugar cane output in Guangxi, according to Feng, head of the Economic and Trade Commission of Guangxi, who was attending the region's meeting on sugar production on Monday.
The rising consumption was mainly fueled by the nation's flourishing food industries, which are expanding at an annual rateof 10 to 12 percent, said Wei Zuhan, deputy director of the agricultural department of Guangxi.
Statistics show that sugar demand by food baking would grow by 8 percent in 2006 and dairy industries by 15 percent.
Burgeoning consumption will further push the country's demand up to 12.5 million tons in 2007, and nearly one tenth of it will go to the beverage industry.
The swelling gap between demand and supply will turn China intoa big importer on the international market, as customs statistics show that it has already imported 579,300 tons of sugar for the first nine months of this year.
China is the world's fourth largest sugar producer, only after Brazil, India, and the European Union, and the world's fifth largest consumer after India, the EU, Brazil and the United States.
With huge potential ahead, a well-off Chinese population will definitely eat more sugar for a better diet than today's approximately 8 kg per person per year, or merely one third of the world's average, according to the China Sugar Association.
Experts have urged the government to set up a proper sugar reserve to mitigate price fluctuations and prevent the market from running out of control in future trading.
China used its national reserves in June and July of 2004, but failed to fully fill the gap in the market, according to Feng.
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