by William Davies

Global commodity trading now takes place on a growing platform of modern, transparent commodity exchanges across all time zones. Using agreed frameworks of rules and regulations and standard contract designs we now see a wide range of commodities traded between end users and primary producers. The result is that it is now much easier to buy and sell across the range of basic commodities from orange juice to gold bullion, from crude oil to coffee beans.

While some of the major commodities like coffee and crude oil have been traded for a number of years, we are now seeing in modern commodity markets the strong innovation theme leading to new futures contracts being traded. One area where new product development has made a notable change is in the trading of carbon emission permits. Given the growing global concern about the serious long term impact to the environment …

Citing record production and sales, Malawi’s sole sugar manufacturing company, Illovo Sugar Limited of South Africa, announced a K6.353 billion profit–up 23% from last year. Sales and export volumes increased by 13% over the previous year (despite the resilient strength of the Kwacha against the U.S. dollar), and domestic sales grew by 11%.

The company expects a cane crop in excess of 310,000 tons next year, given typical weather conditions and increased production capacity. Illovo, which is also listed on the Malawi Stock Exchange, has paid an interim dividend of K2.40 to its shareholders, while its Directors have declared a second interim dividend of K3.70 per share.

In related news, Zambia Sugar Plc, the country’s largest sugar producer, said it plans to more than double output in the year to end-March 2010 after expanding its plantation and factory and buying a