Chicago, Sept 6 - Sales of U.S. high-fructose corn syrup to Mexico will increase when the market opens to free trade in 2008, said an executive at Archer Daniels Midland Co. , the world's largest producer of the sweetener used in soft drinks and candy.
Earlier this year, the United States and Mexico ended a decade-long dispute over sugar and sweetener trade. The two countries agreed to reciprocal tariff-free import quotas on Mexican sugar and U.S. HFCS in 2006 and 2007, followed by free trade in 2008.
Mexico agreed to buy 250,000 tonnes of U.S. HFCS in 2006 and 500,000 tonnes in 2007.
Sales to Mexico should be even larger in 2008, said William Camp, ADM's executive vice president for global processing. He spoke Wednesday morning at the Prudential Equity Group consumer conference in Boston, which was broadcast over the Internet.
"It should be an open market so we expect it to go higher than the 500,000 tonnes," Camp said. "We have a relatively tight situation in HFCS. It would just tighten the market up that much more."
Camp also said he expected Mexico to take 250,000 tonnes of corn syrup between January and September 2007 and the other 250,000 tonnes between October and December.