FRENCH PRODUCERS WITHDRAW SUGAR FROM INTERVENTION
French producers have withdrawn all
offers to sell more than 700,000 tonnes of sugar into European
Community intervention stocks, EC Commission sources said.
    They also said West German producers had now withdrawn the
last 3,000 of the 79,250 tonnes they sold into EC stores on
April 1.
    The sales were made to protest against the level of export
restitutions being granted for sugar at weekly EC tenders.
    Last Friday, commission sources said the West German
producers had withdrawn all but 3,000 tonnes of their sales.
    The protest by European producers involved sales of 854,000
tonnes of sugar into intervention, of which 785,000 tonnes were
accepted by the commission.
    Under EC regulations, operators had five weeks before
receiving payment to withdraw the sugar.
    Their decision to withdraw the sugar follows what
commission sources have said is a slight shift in the
authority's stance in recent weeks. The commission last week
increased the maximum restitutions to within about 0.5 Ecus per
kilo of the prices which traders claim are needed to match
intervention prices.
 Reuter
