The sugar beet harvest this year is expected to reach 900,000 tonnes or 40 tonnes of sugar beet per hectare. The sugar fields occupy an area of 23,000 hectares. The record figures of 34 tonnes per hectare on average in the country reported in 2006 will be exceeded by about 20% this year, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a communiqué from the Union of Sugar Producers of Moldova. According to the Union’s estimates, about 105,000-110,000 tonnes of sugar would be produced from the sugar beet grown this year. This is more than Moldova needs for domestic consumption so that the sugar producers could make use of the 2008 duty-free sugar quota of 18,000 tonnes offered by the EU, the communiqué says. The beet contains about 16% of sugar and the content of sugar is expected to rise as the outlook for this month is favorable. The improved productivity in the national sugar beet growing and sugar making sector is also due to the large investments made by the agricultural enterprises and sugar producers. The communiqué says that the modern technology for cultivating sugar beet has considerably developed in the past five years. The prices also go up. The sugar producers of Moldova announced that the purchase price of sugar beet this year will be 480 lei (about 33 euros) per tonne - by 15% higher on last year - even before the 2008 sowing campaign. The sugar beet this year will be among the few crops whose prices went up, exceeding the prices in the EU by 5-10%.