(Adds International Sugar Organization report, comment)
By Aleksandras Budrys and David Brough
MOSCOW/LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The European Union will replace Russia as the world's largest raw sugar buyer in 2008/09 due to EU sugar market reforms and a cut in Russian buying.
"From this October onwards, the EU will be the world's largest (sugar) importer," Sergey Gudoshnikov, a senior economist of the London-based International Sugar Organization (ISO), told Reuters.
He said as a result of EU price-slashing market reforms, EU sugar output was falling, increasing imports to the bloc. He forecast for the 2008/09 (Oct-Sept) season, EU sugar import demand at 4.25 million tonnes and Russia's at 3.16 million.
The ISO said in its latest October monthly report on Monday that analysts believed Russia would cut raw sugar purchases as traders struggled to fund deals due to the financial crisis.
In Moscow, the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) said it expected Russian raw cane sugar imports to fall by a quarter to 2.43 million tonnes in 2008, from 3.22 million tonnes in 2007, due mainly to the crisis.
"For the first time in several decades, Russia may give up its position as the largest sugar importer to the European Union," IKAR said in its monthly sugar market report.
Russia, which consumes about 5.8 million tonnes of white sugar annually, refined more than half of this volume from domestic beet in both of the last two years, producing most of the remainder from imported raw cane sugar.
It replaced a raw sugar import tariff of $140 per tonne with a higher duty of $220 per tonne from December 2007 to the end of May 2008 to protect domestic producers from excessive imports.
A tariff of $220-270 per tonne of raw sugar, pegged to New York prices, will be applied for six months from December 2008.
"Imports of raw sugar in August-November, with unloading before January ahead of the seasonal tariff, are expected to be 630,000 tonnes compared to 930,000 tonnes a year ago because of the financial crisis," IKAR said.
It added that exports of white sugar refined in Russia from imported raws would shrink to 46,000 tonnes this year from 313,000 tonnes in 2007, while white sugar imports would fall to 158,000 tonnes from 313,000 tonnes.
Russia refined 2.27 million tonnes of sugar from imported raws in the first 10 months of this year, down from 2.65 million tonnes a year ago, industry lobby the Russian Sugar Producers' Union said on its Web site, www.rossahar.ru.
IKAR has revised up its forecast for domestic sugar refining from this year's sugar beet crop to 3.05 million tonnes from an earlier estimate of 2.93 million tonnes. The producers' union forecasts output of 3.1 million tonnes.
By Nov. 1, Russia had refined 2.0 million tonnes of sugar from this year's crop of domestic beet, up from 1.87 million tonnes a year ago.
IKAR said domestic stocks of both raw and white sugar by the end of the year were expected to be 2.4 million tonnes, compared with 2.68 million tonnes at the end of 2007 and 2.10 million tonnes at the end of 2006.
It added that stocks of white sugar alone in Russia in Aug-Dec 2008 were higher than in the previous four years.
"The market is sitting on excessive stocks, while demand is weak due to seasonal factors," IKAR said.
"With current consumption of around 5.8 million tonnes and imports practically absent in December 2008-May 2009, this may make the domestic balance quite tight by April-May 2009."
IKAR expects domestic sugar prices to rise to $700 per tonne in April-May 2009 from the current $524 if the price of raw cane sugar remains in the region of $290 per tonne CIF Novorossiisk.