NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – ICE sugar futures fell on Tuesday and rose for the fourth year in a row last year. Traders are weighing down Brazil’s bearish political situation and improving harvest prospects in India and Thailand.
sugar
*Raw sugar prices fell 0.34 cents (1.7%) in March to 19.70 cents per pound, up 6.1% last year.
*Dealers noted that Brazil’s real currency depreciated after the inauguration of President Luis Inacio Lula, extending fuel tax exemptions for 60 days.
* “While this would keep the mills focused on sugar, the hydrated parity had already turned the mills in that direction.
*In the first three months of the 2022/23 marketing year, which started on 1st October, sugar production at Indian mills increased by 3.7% over the same period last year.
* White sugar fell $6.90, or 1.2%, to $547.50 per tonne in March.
coffee
* Arabica coffee fell 1 cent, or 0.6%, to $1.663 per pound in March.
* Arabica recorded an annual loss of 26% in 2022. It is under pressure from concerns about a slowdown in demand, a good outlook for this year’s harvest in top producer Brazil, and higher currency stocks.
— Coffee exports from Honduras, Central America’s largest Arabica coffee exporter, fell 15% year-on-year in December.
* Brazil’s December coffee exports also fell by 12% to 182,101 tonnes.
* Robusta coffee rose $53, or 2.9%, to $1,852 per ton in March.
cocoa
*London cocoa fell £15 (0.7%) to £2,047 per tonne in March after gaining 21% in 2022.
* Côte d’Ivoire’s ports, the top producer of cocoa, reached 1.259 million tonnes of cocoa between 1 October and 1 January, up 13.7% from the same period last season.
*Climate42 said the recent wet seasons in major cocoa-producing countries Ivory Coast and Ghana have been largely benign, with soils storing water in preparation for the dry season.
* New York cocoa prices fell $28, or 1.1%, to $2,572 per tonne in March. (Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira, New York and Maytaal Angel, London; Editing by David Goodman and Shailesh Kuber)
