THE OUTLOOK FOR SUGAR 2001/02 AND BEYOND

摘要

Sugar is a difficult commodity, economically and politically. A major problem is the instability of world market prices, which makes both trading in sugar and export production very risky occupations. For most of the time since World War II, the worldmarket for sugar has been the most price-volatile of all soft commodity markets, characterized by long periods when prices were below production costs and short price peaks. For a while in the 1990s, the world market for sugar seemed to have lost much of this instability, owing to structural changes in the world sugar economy, notably the greater role of developing countries in world trade and the broader scope of the free world market after the collapse of the special Cuban-Soviet trade relationship.But in the last two years or so, price volatility has returned with a vengeance. The main reasons are the residual nature of the world market and the growing influence of Brazil, now the world's leading sugar exporter.