India may not approve additional sugar exports in the year ending September, Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said at a briefing Thursday.

Country’s sugar production is likely to be 200,000 to 400,000 tons lower than target this year

NOTE: India has already permitted 6m tons of exports this year, with potential for another 1m tons if production meets govt estimate

That looks unlikely now; an industry group said Wednesday that India’s October-March sugar output fell 3.3% y/y

Chopra said impact of unseasonable rains on wheat harvest will be marginal

Govt will likely meet its target of procuring 34.15m tons of wheat from the new crop

Eoin Treacy's view

India curtailing exports is bumping up against rising demand from China as consumer activity picks up and eating out becomes ubiquitous once more. That’s putting upward pressure on the price. Brazil’s harvest is now underway but it will need to be a bumper crop to mitigate the steep backwardation right across the futures curve.
Sugar demand growth is a driven by rising living standards and the diabetes associated with it. Additionally, the growth in demand for biofuels, not least as oil prices remain high and regulatory burdens continue, suggests the secular theme is for higher prices. More planting is the normal way of reversing these kinds of trends but that takes time and assumes no competition from other crops.