Sugar refineries attempt to reverse slide in market prices

On Thursday four state owned sugar holdings and foreign investors involved with domestic sugar producers will sign a formal agreement about halting 250,000 tones of sugar from entering the market in an attempt to keep prices up. "Sugar refineries should not be forced to sell their products below their actual production costs. A system to regulate the market is necessary, this is the only way to limit supply," said Piotr Banach from British BSO, which owns 10 domestic plants. The agreement seeks to persuade the gov ernment to decrease the quota for the domestic market from 1.54 million tones to 1.3 million tones by August. However all sugar refineries would have to agree to this limit. "Some refineries might object, although the State Treasury promises it will discipline its plants. If a sugar mill loses liquidity then all it cares about is paying off current financial liab ilities," explained an employee from a state owned refinery. "This year the sector should just about break-even," believes Marian Brzezinski from Poznan University. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 6) M.M.