According to monitoring data from the SunSirs Commodity Market Analysis System: at the beginning of the month, the average domestic price for Grade 1 white sugar stood at 5,373 RMB/ton; by the end of the month, this average remained unchanged at 5,373 RMB/ton, indicating price stability.
Domestically, the market received a boost in early May from the international market, providing positive external support for domestic sugar prices. Sugar producers and traders in major spot-market production regions displayed heightened enthusiasm in their price quotations, leading to across-the-board price hikes. However, the overall trading atmosphere cooled down in late May; downstream enterprises did not increase their purchasing volume in response to price fluctuations, with most maintaining a "rigid demand" strategy focused on replenishing inventory strictly as needed. Regarding supply and demand dynamics, the domestic white sugar market continues to face pressure to digest high inventory levels resulting from the bumper harvest of the previous season. Although the market has entered the "warm-up" phase for the traditional summer consumption peak, purchasing activity within the downstream sugar-containing food and beverage sectors has been relatively sluggish this year. Consequently, the characteristic features of a peak season have yet to clearly manifest; the pull from the demand side remains limited and is insufficient to generate sustained upward momentum for prices.
Internationally, major producing nations—including Brazil, India, and Thailand—are generally expected to increase production during the 2025/26 crop year, ensuring that the global supply-demand balance for sugar remains in a loose state. For the 2026/27 crushing season (specifically through the first half of April), the cumulative sugarcane crushing volume in Brazil's South-Central region reached 19.956 million tons. This represents an increase of 3.28 million tons compared to the 16.676 million tons recorded during the same period last year—a year-on-year growth of 19.67%. Meanwhile, the cumulative sugar production ratio stood at 32.93%, a decrease of 11.78 percentage points compared to the 44.71% recorded during the same period last year.
Currently, the domestic white sugar market has officially entered a phase focused purely on sales; both industrial inventories and stocks held in production regions remain at high levels, resulting in an abundant market supply. Compounding this situation is the gradual withdrawal of capital from futures markets, leaving "long" positions with insufficient momentum to drive prices higher. Consequently, white sugar prices are projected to follow a predominantly volatile-to-weak trend in the short term.
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