Sweeteners China News

Welcome to the supplement of March issue of Sweeteners China News (Vol. 4 Issue 03 2014) published by CCM, a professional consulting company which has been extensively and intensively focusing on the dynamics of China's sweetener industry.

As for the recession of China's sucrose industry in the extraction season of 2013/2014, several carbonized refined sucrose producers, such as Fangcheng Refined Sugar and Guangxi Guitang, paid close attention to the development of high-end sucrose market. In fact, the main reason of current recession in China's sucrose industry was due to the much higher cost of raw material in sucrose production. China's sucrose industry has been already trying to promote the mechanization in the cultivation of sugar plants, in order to cut down the cost for growers in the harvesting and transportaion of sugar plants, and thus the cost of material for sucrose producers.

Starch sugar is the worst-affected industry by the falling sucrose price in China since 2013. Some producers like Star Lake Bioscience chose to give up their starch sugar business which was underperforming. Other producers, like Baolingbao, lowered their products' prices in order to increase their revenues. Besides, in view of the product homogeneity and intense competition in domestic market, some producers also spent their resources in brand building. This trend happened not only in starch sugar producers like Baolingbao, but also in some alcohol producers like Shandong Longlive.

To be noticed, the RMB/USD exchange rate in this issue is is 6.12 (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.