Mexico City, Sept 18 - Mexico's economy ministry set an additional sugar import quota on Friday, reaching a total of 900,000 tonnes to cover the country's shortfall in production.
The official gazette set a new quota of 300,000 tonnes, 30,000 tonnes of which will be set aside for Nicaragua under a preferential trade agreement. It will come on top of quotas announced earlier in the year.
In August and early September, Mexico announced initial quotas of 600,000 tonnes in two separate agreements but said the amount was not enough to meet demand.
"The national supply of sugar could be insufficient to satisfy the demand for this product in the last quarter of 2009, due to a reduction of approximately 10.6 percent in production," the official gazette said.
But the head of the national sugar cane growers union said the government is planning to import too much sugar.
"According to our figures ... we have a deficit of 520,000 tonnes of sugar that should be imported," Carlos Blackaller, head of the union, told Reuters.
"The economy ministry is overreacting," said Blackaller, concerned the quotas will push down sugar prices.