COMMODITIES: Sweet War Baby
Not since World War II has sugar, a traditional war baby, been traded so furiously on the commodity exchange. Future prices for the past several weeks have soared from $3.30 to $5.30 a 100 Ibs., the highest since the Korean war. Last week U.S. sugar refiners in the Northeast boosted their prices for the third time since October, to the highest figure since 1923.
The rise was not all due to the Middle East war scare. In the past few years the Cuban sugar surplus has dropped from 2,000,000 to less than 1,000,000 tons, and production has gone down in many sugar-producing countries. In a move to check the price rise, the Department of Agriculture last week increased the 1956 import quota for the eighth time this year.
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