Abolishment of sugar quotas in EU poses threat to Serbian manufacturers

Lifting of sugar quotas in the European Union will have an adverse effect on the operations of sugar refineries in our country. Experts foresee that the Serbian market will be flooded by cheap sugar from Europe because EU countries are going to keep the subsidies they grant to their manufacturers.

Serbia produced less than 300,000 tonnes of sugar last year, a half as much as in 2014. Of the six existing sugar beet processing plants, one factory was not in operation last season because the current sugar production is not big enough to keep all processing plants busy.

Sugar production in 2014 was at 545,857 tonnes, which is quite enough to satisfy domestic needs as well as the EU export quota, based on the preferred status of 181,000 tonnes. However, the results from the previous season show that the export quota cannot be met because we must first satisfy our own needs, which are at about 180,000 tonnes.

Olga Curovic, the director of the Business Community for Industrial Herbs, said that our sugar refineries were less and less competitive, while the cost of production was getting higher and higher.

Situation in the Serbian sugar industry is best depicted by the fact that out of 11 sugar factories in the country, only five were in operation in 2015.