Algeria's top sugar refiner, Cevital, will produce 500,000 tonnes of white sugar in 2005, or about half domestic needs, the family-owned company's vice-president said on Monday. "We'll refine 500,000 tonnes of raw sugar this year. We refined the same quantity in 2004," Malik Rebrab told Reuters. All Cevital's raw sugar imports will come from Brazil.

"We imported (in 2004) something like 540,000 tonnes of raw sugar from Brazil where we have three suppliers. We'll continue this year to purchase our raw sugar from there," he said.

Algeria's annual imports of raw sugar are estimated at 700,000 tonnes, with white sugar imports at 300,000 tonnes.

State-owned Enasucre, which is in the process of being purchased by local private group Blanky International Trading (BIT), produces 180,000 tonnes of white sugar per year. Another private group, Les Sucreries de l'Ouest, plans to produce 400,000 tonnes of white sugar in the next year or so, said a Commerce Ministry official who declined to be named.

Copyright Reuters, 2005