I am doing buisness since 1974. Recently I have tried to do some
business for REFINED CRYSTAL SUGAR and asked various companies for
price.I have received price from USD 200 to USD 520 per MT c&f any
world safe port(AWSP).
This is very big difference in price and it is very natural that such
a big differnce in price does not exist.It mean that are so many net
hunter
which are doing fraud to offer cheap price.

Now my question is as under:
a-why there is so much difference?
b-What is real value of Sugar and how any some one can check
  that the seller is asking for right price?
c-What is London price, how it is determind?
4-Why price in open market/with traders are lower than
  London Price?
5-I need name,address with email of atleast 50 compnies
  considered to be reliable trader or producer of sugar
6-What is the safest way to do business?

I can increase to price if reply will be good

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Clarification of Question by ijaz111-ga on 08 Jun 2006 23:45 PDT

I can accept number of companies as 20 instead of 50 >>>
Ijaz Ahmad

a- Sugar prices have been increasing pretty rapidly.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4743082.stm That might explain
some of the difference between the two prices, if you received the
quotes at different times.
$200 per metric tonne seems too good to be true (which generally means
it is to be mistrusted). Could the person have accidentally typed in
"dollar" instead of "pound"? Or are his units nonmetric/a little off?
I doubt he'd sell sugar to you at half the market price.

b&c- As of today, sugar costs $443.5 per metric tonne.
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=129788 If
I am not mistaken, the price of sugar is determined like the price of
gold or anything else: whatever people are paying for it is the price.
In the Liffe exchange, that happened to be $443.5.

4. If it does turn out that trading in the open market is cheaper than
London, that's probably because the cost of transpotation to London is
greater than the difference between the prices. That way, both buyer
and seller profit more from the deal than if the sugar were purchased
in London. Also, it's important to note that London is a large mass of
consumers, which will drive prices up.

5. I'm going to skip this one. If you want a Google Researcher to
answer it, you'll probably have to reduce the number of companies
you're looking for or pay more than $5 (10 cents per company is not a
lot, especially because 25% of that goes to Google).

6. Two rules of thumb: if it seems too good to be true, it usually is.
Make sure that whoever is recommending or condeming a certain trading
partner has no financial steak in your choice of a business partner.

Hope this helps.

Some countries support sugar prices by fixing the market price and
volume inside their countries.

Cuba would love to sell sugar in New York, but there are political
blockages at both ends of that transaction.

Corn syrup producers would love an even playing field cause their cost
can be very low.