BEGHIN-SAY SAYS SUGAR OFFER TO EC STILL STANDS A plan by European producers to sell 854,000 tonnes of sugar to European Community intervention stocks still stands, Andrea Minguzzi, an official at French sugar producer Beghin-Say, said. Last week Beghin-Say president Jean-Marc Vernes said a possible settlement of a row with the EC would lead producers to withdraw their offer, which was made as a protest against EC export licensing policies. The EC policy is to offer export rebates, which fail to give producers an equivalent price to that which they would get by offering sugar into intervention stocks, Vernes said. But Minguzzi said the offer was a commercial affair and that producers had no intention of withdrawing the sugar offer already lodged with intervention boards of different European countries. He said final quality approval for all the sugar offered could come later this week. Some 95 pct had already cleared quality specifications. The EC can only reject an offer to sell into intervention stocks on quality grounds. Minguzzi added that under EC regulations, the Community has until early May to pay for the sugar. He declined to put an exact figure on the amount of sugar offered by Beghin-Say, but said it was below 500,000 tonnes.