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Sugar production in Belarus at historic high

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MINSK, 28 March (BelTA) – Nearly 5.3 million tonnes of sugar beet was harvested in Belarus in 2023 while the target was set at 5 million tonnes. It is a serious figure and is the highest one on record in the entire history of development of Belarus’ sugar industry, Chairman of the Belarusian state food industry concern Belgospishcheprom Oleg Zhidkov told the Economy of Belarus magazine in an interview.

Oleg Zhidkov said: “After processing the raw materials we received 670,000 tonnes of sugar, 15-17% up from 2022. The figure varied from sugar refinery to sugar refinery. It will become our key export potential this year. Prices on international commodity exchanges are on the rise. Although we mainly sell sugar in the Eurasian Economic Union where a slightly different pricing model prevails and, for instance, there are quite many domestic producers in Russia, the current market situation allows our sugar refineries to secure quite a good profit margin.”

In 2024 Belarus’ domestic market will get 1.5 times the amount of sugar it needs. In other words, the sugar industry has reached a level of self-sufficiency that exceeds domestic consumption by half. All the reserves have been tapped to achieve this result, Oleg Zhidkov noted. In the future it will be possible to increase production primarily thanks to modernization and more profound processing of raw materials. These measures can increase output by another 1.5-2%.

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