Suedzucker sees lower quarterly profit on duty-free Ukraine imports
Adds Suedzucker comment on EU curbs, context on impact from Ukraine and Middle East wars; paragraphs 5-7
By Andrey Sychev
GDANSK, July 10 (Reuters) -Europe's largest sugar producer Suedzucker SZUG.DE on Wednesday said it expects a "significant decline" in its June-to-August quarterly earnings, hurt by prolonged duty-free agricultural imports from Ukraine into the EU.
TheEuropean Union in Aprilextended tariff-free trade for Ukrainian farm produce, but also introduced curbs on import volumes to assuage protesting farmers in the bloc.
Ukraine already reached the annual quota of sugar exports into the EU in May and said at the time it would halt supplies.
"The future impact of the negative influences stemming from the EU's extended duty-free access for agricultural imports from Ukraine, which is now limited in terms of volume, remains uncertain," the group's statement said.
Suedzucker sees no immediate effect from the EU import curbs as the market is still oversaturated with cheaper Ukrainian sugar, which allowed clients to get lower prices in contacts within the last two years, the company's spokesperson told Reuters.
Commodities markets such as sugar are typically slow to react to regulatory changes as participants tend to enter one or two-year contracts, so the Ukraine imports will continue to have an impact on sugar prices for a very long time, he added.
The fallout of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue to exacerbate already highly volatile sales and procurement markets, making consequences hard to assess, the firm's statement said.
Its shares fell 3% on the news, reaching their lowest in a month.
Suedzucker did not specify the level ofexpected earnings before interest, taxes, deprecation, and amortization (EBITDA) in its fiscal second quarter until August, but it confirmed its forecast for the 2024/2025 fiscal yearmade on April 15.
Last year, the German firm's EBITDA stood at 383 million euros ($414.44 million) in the second quarter.
($1 = 0.9241 euros)
Reporting by Andrey Sychev
Editing by Ludwig Burger and Rachel More
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