March 20 (SeeNews) - Austrian food group Agrana has frozen its plan to acquire Serbia's biggest sugar producer Sunoko for at least a year, Austrian media reported on Wednesday.
"The current sugar price allows no purchases," Austrian news agency APA quoted Agrana CFO Stephan Buettner as saying.
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Acquisition opportunities may arise again once the sugar price has stabilised, but that will take at least one to two years, Buettner said.
In May 2018, Agrana said it has suspended the negotiations for the acquisition of Sunoko. Agrana and the owner of Sunoko, Agri Europe Cyprus, agreed to put the talks on hold due to the challenging European sugar market environment, the Austrian company said back then.
Sunoko has three production plants - in Kovacica, Vrbas and Pecinci, all located in Serbia's northern province of Vojvodina. It is the largest sugar beet purchaser and sugar producer in Southeastern Europe with an annual output of about 300,000 tonnes of sugar.