India sugar deal

PUNE: Indian sugar mills have contracted to export 50,000 tonnes of white sugar to Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan at $340 to $345 a tonne, free on board, trade sources said, the first major deal in the past few months. The cargoes are for July shipment, they said. India, the world’s biggest sugar consumer, has signed the export deal due to a sharp fall in local prices. After a sustained drop in the past 10 days, local ex-mill sugar prices have now fallen to INR 19,200 a tonne, pushing mills to take export orders. After five straight years of surplus production, India is swamped with sugar. As a result, prices have crashed and many mills are struggling with big debts. Sugar stocks are now expected to touch 10.3 million tonnes on October 1, when the new 2015-16 season starts, up 37 per cent from the previous year.

CSRC fires official

SHANGHAI: China’s stock watchdog said on Saturday it has dismissed the head of its share issuance bureau because of suspected illegal stock trading by her spouse. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), in a statement on its official microblog-style Weibo account, said the official, Li Zhiling, was suspected of criminal activity and had been handed over to police. The regulator, which pledged in the statement to ‘strike hard’ at any law violations and irregularities, gave no details.