China is likely to become the world's largest sugar importer by 2020 as consumption grows along with incomes, said Commonwealth Bank of Australia in a report on Wednesday. CBA said increased urbanisation and a Westernisation of diets would see sugar consumption rising rapidly in countries with low rates of sugar consumption per person such as China.
Per capita sugar demand in China is just 7.6kg per person per year, the report cited the United Nation's FAO as saying, while in developed Asian nations such as Japan and South Korea the per capita sugar demand is 29kg/person/year and 36kg/person/year, respectively. Some developed Western nations displayed considerably higher demand, with Australia at 47kg/person/year and the United States at 67.6kg/person/year, it said. China's National Bureau of Statistics earlier this week that the country's urban population, now 51 percent of the total population, had for the first time exceeded the rural population.