Indonesia buys Brazilian sugar after two year hiatus

Indonesia, the world’s largest importer of raw sugar, is once again buying Brazilian sugar. That’s because the worst drought in decades has reduced Thailand’s crop, prompting Indonesia to look for a new supplier.

According to Alvean, a joint venture between Cargill and Copersucar, and the largest sugar trading company in the world, the company should load a ship in Brazil, this week, with at least 60 thousand tons of raw sugar to Indonesia.

The sale takes place almost two years after the last export of raw sugar from Brazil to Indonesia and comes on the back of forecasts that the Thailand harvest will drop at least 30%. In addition, supplies from the second largest exporter in the world are so expensive today that Indonesia prefers to buy from Brazil despite the higher import tariff.

According to DataLiner, Datamar’s foreign trade data solution, Brazil exported around 16 million tons of sugar in 2019. The following table, based on data from DataLiner, shows the top five destinations for Brazilian sugar in 2019 :

Top five Brazilian sugar exporters in 2019 (values ​​in tons)

Chart source: DataLiner / Datamar

Source of report: Bloomberg

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