India Cuts Sugar Export Subsidies

India recently “slashed” its sugar export subsidy by just over $27 per metric ton under its Maximum Admissible Export Quota, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service said in a June 22 report. The reduction -- from $81.96/metric ton to $54.64/metric ton on May 20, 2021 -- in the assistance program, which facilitates sugar exports and subsidizes production costs for domestic sugar mills, is aimed at accelerating the “diversion of sugar toward ethanol production,” the USDA said. India also hopes the measure helps it in “gradually reining in subsidized exports of Indian sugar in the global markets.”