KYIV: Ukraine’s major white sugar producer, Astarta, has completed 2021 sugar sowing at 33,500 hectares (82,780 acres), or almost 15% of the country’s overall beet sowing area, the company said on Friday.

Astarta harvested around 1.5 million tonnes of sugar beet in 2020, refining 226,000 tonnes of white sugar and keeping 22% of the market share.

Ukraine’s economy ministry has said the 2021 sugar beet area could total 226,900 hectares and a total of 192,680 hectares of sugar beet had been sown as of April 29, according to farm ministry data.

Ukraine produced around 1 million tonnes of white sugar from the 2020 beet harvest.