Serbian Agriculture Minister Sasa Dragin said Wednesday that Serbia had achieved a record-breaking production of sugar in the current year and that the shortage of the item in the market was not due to poor supply.

“This year, Serbia has produced a record-breaking 490,000 tons of sugar,” Dragin said, noting that last year also saw a record-high yield of sugar beet and the largest planted hectarage in it - 69,000 hectares.

Dragin pointed out that the Agriculture Ministry contributed to the record-high sugar production, but refused to comment on the current situation in the domestic market as this, according to him, is in the charge of the Ministry of Trade and Services.

Last week, Trade Minister Slobodan Milosavljevic told Tanjug that the stocks of sugar in the Republic Commodity Reserves Directorate were quite sufficient.

We have enough sugar to secure sufficient quantities of the item for the households in Serbia in the coming months, whether or not we need to intervene on the market, he said.

Milosavljevic believes that, notwithstanding the exports within the quota of 180,000 tons for the EU and the neighboring markets, which are traditionally supplied with sugar from Serbia, there are no objective reasons for the shortage of this commodity in the market.