Government completely removes customs duty on sugar export

New Delhi: The central government has completely removed the duty on export of "raw sugar, white or refined sugar".

“In order to promote exports with the objective of evacuating surplus stocks from the country, the government has decided to remove customs duty on export of sugar from its current level of 20 percent to zero percent,” an official statement said.

This will help in maintaining demand and supply balance and thereby stabilising the domestic sugar prices in the country, government said.

During the current sugar season 2017-18, the sugar production in the country is estimated to be substantially higher than the estimated domestic consumption.

The country is all set to produce record 29.5 million tonnes of the sweetener in the current 2017-18 marketing season.

Earlier, the government had doubled import duty on sugar to 100 percent to check shipments.

Sugar output of India, the world's second largest producer, is estimated to rise sharply to 29.5 million tonnes in the 2017-18 marketing year (October-September) from 20.3 million tonnes in the previous year.

With domestic prices falling below cost of production, sugar industry bodies Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) and National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF) had been demanding scrapping of export duty to liquidate surplus domestic stock.