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  • After an impressive February, raw sugar shipments were down 481k tonnes year-on-year (YoY) in Mar’20.
  • We are beginning to see reduced demand for Thai sugar as increasing prices allow other origins to compete into other destinations.
  • The white sugar export flow also dropped by 89k tonnes month-on-month (MoM), from January to February.

Raws Shipments: Coronavirus Lessens Producers’ Needs  

  • After huge shipments in February, the demand for raw sugar out of Thailand has significantly diminished.
  • This is because we are starting to see reduced demand for Thai sugar as their increased premiums have meant other origins can now compete into different destinations, such as Indonesia.
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  • However, the progress in April so far does not look too bad, with 246k tonnes having already been nominated.
  • As production has started to continue as normal in locations, such as China, the pace of exports out of Thailand could perhaps follow suit; this may be wishful thinking at this point, however…
  • Almost all of Thailand’s raws exports went to Indonesia in Feb’20.
  • However, we saw a major drop off in March as other origins have started to compete with Thailand to a larger degree.
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Whites Shipments: Started 2020 Strong, Now Declining Rapidly  

  • Whites shipments started strong in 2020, up 109k tonnes year-on-year (YoY).
  • Despite this, the decline in shipments, which begun in Oct’19, is yet to show any sign of rebounding.
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  • With 216k tonnes having been shipped in Feb’20, Cambodia was the top destination once again, taking 27k tonnes in February; down 30k tonnes MoM.
  • Other key smuggling regions* appeared in the top five destinations as well, as you can see below.

*Key Smuggling Regions: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Taiwan and Vietnam.

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  • This is interesting because shipments to key smuggling regions were down by 705k tonnes YoY as 2019 came to an end.
  • They were also down 55k tonnes between Dec’19 and Jan’20.
  • Does this mean that with China being back to work, smuggling flows are starting to pick up once again?

Will Langston

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