Russia could export 550,000 tonnes of sugar in the 2016/17 marketing year that began on August 1, Andrey Bodin, the head of Russia's Sugar Producers' Union, told a conference in Moscow on Thursday. The country has been increasing production to reduce reliance on imports and has doubled sugar output over the past 10 seasons.
Russia exported about 120,000 tonnes of sugar between the start of August and end of January, mainly to Central Asia, Bodin said. Its exports for the whole previous marketing year were 8,000 tonnes. Along with the Central Asia, Russia is also exporting its sugar to Afghanistan and plans supplies to Serbia soon, he added.
Russia's sugar refineries finished the processing of sugar beet harvested in 2016 in early March, producing a record 6.15 million tonnes of sugar, against 5.2 million tonnes a year ago, the producer union's data showed.
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