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EU issued 9,663 mt of EPA sugar import licenses May 11-15

http://www.chemnet.com   May 22,2015 Platts
The EU issued 9,663 mt of sugar import licenses during the week beginning May 11 under EPA-EBA agreements, down 68% week on week, the European Commission said Thursday.

That brought the total of EPA-EBA imports since the 2014-15 season began on October 1 to 1,388,609 mt, down 9% on the year.

Imports under EPA-EBA agreements are duty-free.

The majority of the licenses, or 9,533 mt, were allocated to the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) group.

The remaining volume was allocated to the Least Developed Countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states (LDC-ACP) and to the Southern African Development Community.

Imports under the preferential EPA agreement have fallen recently, as low domestic prices in Europe and a weakening euro against the dollar have made exotic sugar exporters reluctant to ship their product to the EU.

"We have seen limited imports under these preferential agreements," one broker said. "Even with no import duty, they prefer to ship to countries that pay them in dollars."

Sugar imported under CXL licenses carries a Eur98/mt ($109/mt) import duty.

No extra CXL-import licenses have been allocated since November as low domestic prices in Europe have made taxed imports unattractive.

The import licenses for this group are 19,608 mt for the 2014-15 campaign, compared with 351,866 mt at this stage during the previous campaign.
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