Sweeteners China News

Welcome to the supplement of January issue of Sweeteners China News (Vol. 4 Issue 02 2014) published by CCM, a professional consulting company which has been extensively and intensively focusing on the dynamics of China's sweetener industry. 

Both the output of domestically produced sucrose and the sucrose price in China are predicted to be steady in the coming months, mainly because the impact of imported sucrose on China's sucrose market will weaken due to the expected future rebound of  the international sucrose price. However, the domestic market price of sucrose remained rather low since Jan. 2014, placing great pressure on China's starch sugar producers. Due to the low sucrose price and the overcapacity of starch sugar, the domestic ex-works price of starch sugar continued to be low since Jan. 2014. In fact, the downturn in China's starch sugar industry over recent two years has forced domestic starch sugar producers to focus more on export businesses. China's syrup exports saw an obvious YoY increase in 2013. Similar increase also appeared in China's xylitol exports, especially in Q4 2013. The latter had also been stuck with domestic overcapacity over recent years.

Unlike producers of starch sugar, the future focus of China's oligosaccharide producers remain on the domestic market. Regarding patents, some oligosaccharide producers like QHT had begun to turn to the operation of end-products, while some producers like Baolingbao had consciously intended to develop the feed industry as its downstream market. At present, most clients of China's oligosaccharide producers are from the health food industry. All of the aforementioned oligosaccharide producers' actions will help reduce the dependence on current monotonous clients resources, and ensure their future steady development.

To be noticed, the RMB/USD exchange rate in this issue is is 6.11 (source: The People's Bank of China), and all the prices mentioned in this newsletter include the VAT unless otherwise specified. If there are any specific topics you would like us to cover or any subjects you would like us to investigate in more details, please contact us by +86-20-3761 6606, or econtact@cnchemicals.com.