The country expects to produce about 318,000 tonnes of sugar this year, an increase of 27 per cent compared to the last year production, the Tanzania Sugar Board (TSB) has said.

According to the TSB director general, Mr Mathew Kombe, the slight increase of production of the sweetener should allay fears that price for the commodity would rice sharply amid high global demand.

"In fact, the prices have started falling and we expect further decline as more production is anticipated this season," he told The Citizen yesterday in Dar es Salaam in an interview.

This comes as recently the US authorities swiftly moved to open its markets to more sugar imports, the move, which analysts said, was likely to strengthen the renewed rally in global prices of the commodity.

Already, global sugar prices rose to a five-month high on Friday in response to the move that the US Department of Agriculture said was aimed at averting looming shortages in the domestic market.

Tanzania's annual demand is around 330,000 tonnes for households and about 100,000 tonnes for local industries.

However, this is much far below the actual production capacity of the four local sugar producing companies; Mtibwa, Kilombero, Kagera and TPC Moshi.

Last April, the country rushed to waive for importing 65,000 tonnes of sugar in order to gap the deficit.

"Ironically, the fall in production is attributed to the climate change, whose effect has badly reduced amount of sugarcane yielded per hectare," added Mr Kombe.

Global sugar prices have surged more than 45 per cent since the beginning of May alone, with industry players mainly attributing the trend to weather-related port delays in Brazil, which is the world's largest sugar exporter.

Analysts said extra shipments to US, will add the pressure on global prices of the commodity, especially at a time when production continued to fumble in leading producer countries such as India due to poor weather conditions.