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Economic Environment of Business

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Case Scenario
Read the following case scenario carefully and answer all the questions given at the end of the case.

Sugar the new oil as prices soar
By Andrew Clark
The price of sugar on global commodity markets has doubled since the beginning of the year and is close to a 28-year high as hedge funds and speculators jostle to bet on the possibility of an international shortage of the world's favourite natural sweetener.
For financiers seeking adrenaline-driven price lurches, sugar has become the new oil. Historically, raw sugar has traded at between 10 and 12 US cents per pound at the New York Board of Trade. But the price briefly touched 24.85 cents last month, its highest since 1981, and sugar is now hovering around the 23 cent mark.
The rise has come amid a broader commodity boom. Metals and energy rose sharply today as the dollar weakened and global stock markets moved higher.
There are some solid underlying reasons for the upward lurch in the price of raw sugar. Heavy rain has disrupted milling in the world's largest producer of sugar, Brazil, where a sizeable portion of sugarcane has been diverted from food use into ethanol fuel. Meanwhile the biggest consumer of sugar, India, has had a dismal monsoon season and has gone from being a net exporter of sugar to an importer.
"The key premise has really come from Brazil and India," said Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, a commodities analyst at Barclays Capital. "The bulk of the problem lies in inclement weather conditions."
The London-based International Sugar Organisation predicts that global consumption of sugar will outstrip production by 9m tonnes next year, forcing food companies and governments to dig into stockpiles. In the US, snack manufacturers including Mars, Nestlé and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts urged the Obama administration to relax import controls, warning the US could "virtually run out of sugar".

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