Wolfgang Heer said Suedzucker had the financial power and know-how to make large acquisitions if required, which could be outside the European Union if necessary.

"Naturally we are always examining projects for growth by acquisitions, not only for sugar," he told Reuters in an interview.

Brazil is the world's largest sugar producer but extracts sugar from cane rather than beet, as is used in Europe.

"Apart from the raw material being different, sugar production from cane or from beets is very similar," he said.

Heer said that Europe's largest sugar refiner was experienced in production technology and that its agricultural raw materials experts would be able to cultivate sugar cane.

"It must not necessarily be a takeover costing billions. I can achieve the same with a small takeover over a long period as with a large takeover," he added.

Heer said he expects firm sugar prices in coming months.

On Oct. 13, Suedzucker said rising sugar prices helped it post an 81 percent jump in first-half net profits in its 2016/17 financial year starting in March.

Raw sugar futures hit a four-year high in October as lowered expectations for Indian production and a weak end to the cane processing season in Brazil lent support to talk of a potential global supply deficit.

Analysts are forecasting a global supply deficit in the coming year, Heer told Reuters.

"If you assume that the demand in the coming year will be higher than supplies, then the (sugar) price would hold," he said.

"The world market price is definitively expected to rise rather than fall. This will support the price situation in the EU."

The EU is liberalising its restrictive sugar market. EU sugar production quotas will be lifted after Sept. 30, 2017, and EU sugar producers will be able to export freely on the world market. The EU is now a net sugar importer.

Suedzucker will use the new freedom to examine expanding sugar exports, Heer said.

"Today we have an export share of less than 10 percent," he said. "We will expand our export volume when it is sensible from an economic viewpoint. But at the same time we do not want to give up market share in the EU."

Traditional export markets for EU sugar include the Middle East, countries around the Mediterranean, Africa and South East Asia, he said.

"There is also a supply deficit in the Philippines and possibilities in South Korea," the Suedzucker head added.

(Writing by Michael Hogan, editing by Tina Bellon and David Evans)

By Ilona Wissenbach