In its 63rd council meeting, International Sugar Organisation (ISO), headquartered in London, has announced India to be the Chair of the organisation for 2024. This is a huge achievement for the country to lead the global sugar sector and reflection of growing stature of the country in this domain. While attending the ISO Council Meeting, Shri Sanjeev Chopra, Secretary (Food), Government of India remarked that during its period of chairmanship of ISO in 2024, India seeks support and cooperation from all member countries and would like to focus on bringing together all member countries to adopt more sustainable practices in sugarcane cultivation, sugar and ethanol production and better utilisation of by-products.
India has been the largest consumer and second largest producer of sugar in the world. With about 15% share in global sugar consumption and about 20% production of sugar, Indian sugar trends affects the global markets profusely. This leading position makes India as the most suitable nation to lead International Sugar Organisation (ISO) which is the apex international body on sugar and relating products having about 90 countries as members.
With Brazil in the Western Hemisphere, India is the market leader in Eastern Hemisphere for sugar market. Now, being the 3rd largest country in the world in ethanol production after USA and Brazil, India has shown commitment towards green energy and its capability to twist the challenges of surplus sugar in domestic market to solution of fossil fuels imports and a tool to meet COP 26 targets for India. It is remarkable that ethanol blending percentage in India has increased from 5% in 2019-20 to 12% in 2022-23 while the production has increased from 173 crore litres to more than 500 crore litres during the same period.
Indian sugar industry has come a long way in modernisation and expansion as well as in diversification to exploitation of potential of its by-products to generate additional revenue streams to make the whole business model both sustainable and profitable. It has proven its robustness during Covid pandemic by operating its mills while the country was facing lockdown and rising to the occasion by producing hand sanitisers sufficient to meet the demand in the country.