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Sugar production has a long history in Egypt that dates back to ancient times. Egypt’s farmers cultivate both sugarcane and sugar beet on an area of 1 million feddans, which represents 6.5% of the total cultivation area in the country. The resulting refined sugar is used for domestic consumption and exports.
The Egyptian sugar market has recently faced a price shock that affected market dynamics. Hence, in this Factsheet, we will give you a comprehensive overview of the Egyptian sugar market’s main features, while highlighting Egypt’s global position, and will finally shed light on the current hike in prices.
- In 2022/23, the world’s production of raw sugar reached 177.28 million tons. India, Brazil, and Thailand ranked as the top three producers of sugar, with shares of 19.3%, 15.6%, and 8.3%, respectively. Egypt, on the other side, ranked the 12th largest producer, with a share of 1.6% of the world’s sugar production.
- In 2022/23, Egypt’s production of raw sugar reached 2.76 million tons, representing an annual decline of 3.3%. Sugar produced from sugar beets represented 53% of the total production, while 47% came from sugarcane. Egypt’s production of sugar is expected to slightly increase in 2023/24 by 1% year-on-year (YoY) to reach 2.785 million tons.
- Egypt has 15 sugar processing companies, eight of which process sugarcane and seven process sugar beets. All the eight companies are run by the state. On the other hand, three out of the seven sugar beet processors are private, and the rest are state-run companies.
- In 2022/23, Egypt’s domestic consumption of sugar reached 3.68 million tons, which created a market gap filled with imports of around 830,000 tons. The consumption is further expected to reach 3.78 million tons in 2023/24. The growing demand combined with falling domestic supply is expected to increase the market gap to 930,000 tons.
- Egypt’s imports of sugar reached $200 million, when 86.9% of these imports came from Brazil alone. The suppliers’ list also included the European Union (EU) and India.
- Despite being a net sugar importer, Egypt exports part of its production to the rest of the world. In 2022, Egypt’s exports of sugar reached $189.3 million. Turkey came on top of importers with a share of 20.8%, followed by Palestine with 17.5% and Kenya with 13.9%.
- Recently, the prices of sugar in Egypt have hiked to unprecedented levels, reaching EGP 35-40 per kilogram. The hike in prices was mainly explained by the high demand during “El Mawlid El Nabawy”. Yet this was not the only reason, as in 2022/23 the sugar beets were subject to an outbreak of Rhizomania disease, which was expected to damage around 10% of Egypt’s harvest.
- In its efforts to control domestic prices, the Egyptian government announced the extension of the sugar export ban for three more months, starting September 20th. In addition, the government announced the importation of 200,000 tons of sugar to maintain the strategic reserves sufficient for at least six months.
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