International Sugar Agreement

International Sugar Agreement (ISA) is an agreement among sugar producing countries in order to stabilize world sugar prices and have cooperation in sugar production. Major sugar producing countries in the world that at the same time, the largest traditional consumers of sugar are :

• Brazil
• EU
• India
• China
• USA

Since 1953 there have been various attempts to raise and stabilize the global sugar price through this agreement. The latest agreement in 1977 established exports  quotas for its parties in order to withdraw sugar from the market when prices were low. like previous ones, this agreement ended in failure due to the fact that the European Union refused to sign the agreement.

The organization representing this agreement is called "International Sugar Organization" (ISO) which is an intergovernmental organization, based in London, United Kingdom. This Organization was established by the International Sugar Agreement of 1968, as the body responsible for administering the agreement.

The ISO has the role of promoting the sugar industry, particularly in developing countries, and improving the transparency of the market by publishing statistics on sugar production and trade and world market analysis.