“Since June 2015, the sucrose prices both in China and abroad have showed declines. Respectively, the domestic one was affected by the imported sugar, whilst the international one was influenced by the depreciation of Brazilian Real and the international crude oil. In the short run, such factors will continue impacting the sucrose prices at home and abroad.
Under the strict control of imported sugar by the Chinese government, some lawbreakers, attracted by the high profit, smuggle sugar.
In H1 2015, the price of syrup sorbitol rose YoY, mainly because of the increased price of raw material and the decreased supply. It is predicted that, in the short run, the market of syrup sorbitol will stay weak and stable.
In June 2015, Nanning Sugar signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Guangzhou Sugarcane Industry Research Institute, which is beneficial to the further development of the company’s sugar making business.
In July 2015, PureCircle released a new stevia sweetener, Sigma-T, at the IFT15, expected to further diversify the product structure and give support to PureCircle in exploring the downstream.
In July 2015, Shandong Xieli noted the plan to raise a fund to carry out further R&D, promotion and sale of xylose and L(+)-arabinose. This is beneficial to the competitiveness improvement of the company.
In July 2015, Holmer Sugar announced the smooth advancement in the 1 st phase of its 1 million t/a sugar making project based on beet. In addition, the company is proactively constructing fully mechanised beet planting bases, to ensure the supply of raw material.
In H1 2015, the ex-works price of HFCS showed a rise, mainly because of the increased cost and the raised price of competing product. However, it is expected that the HFCS price will decline slightly in the short run, as the cost support has been weakened and the downstream has showed weak demand since July.
During January-May 2015, China’s xylitol export recorded a YoY rise in volume and a YoY fall in price. This is mainly because the exporters (by manufacturer) trapped in overcapacity, intended to lower price to increase the sales.
During January-May 2015, China’s export of cyclamate recorded a YoY rise in volume and a YoY fall in price. It is predicted that this trend will continue in the short run.
In July 2015, China’s starch sugar industry was expected to get into the traditional peak period, along with largely increasing demand from soft drink (carbonated drink for instance) and hard drink (beer for instance). Impacted by the relatively depressing economic condition, however, the sales was not satisfactory. Some HFCS enterprises stated that the decrease in purchase by the downstream had led to the overstock. Hence, some HFCS enterprises down-regulated the operating rates or suspended production to ease the inventory pressure. In Shandong Province, for example, the operating rate of HFCS enterprises averaged around 55% in July, down by 3 percentage points MoM.
During June-July, China’s sucrose industry also began to fluctuate and turn down, mainly because of the increased imports of sugar pushed by the high profit from processing imported sugar. Notably, the lawbreakers smuggled sugar, which also threatened the domestic sucrose market.
In addition, the sucrose output in 2014/15 extracting season (October 2014-September 2015) decreased by about 21% YoY, which also gave impetus to the upward trend of the sucrose market.
Since the sucrose production in 2014/15 came to an end officially in June, in the last 2 months of the 2014/15 extracting season, China’s sucrose industry probably will pay more attention to the imports of sugar.
The IFT 2015 held in Chicago (the US) is also of great significance to the domestic market. Most of the Chinese sweetenerenterprises took part in it. Of this, some released their new products.
PureCircle: Sigma-T, a solution to tea beverage
GFS: monk fruit juice concentrate, a substitute for HIS and sugar alcohol to effectively lower the sugar content and calorie”
