Indian sugar mills produced 16.86 million tonnes of the sweetener in the first five months of 2013/14 season that started on October 1, down 10.5 percent from last year, a producers' body said on Tuesday. The world's second biggest sugar producer exported 1.2 million tonnes of sugar by the end of February, including 500,000 tonnes of raw sugar, the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said in a statement.
India granted a subsidy for raw sugar output to tackle a chronic surplus of the refined product, in a move that is likely to boost exports of raws by the second-biggest producer after Brazil and put downward pressure on world prices.
