New Delhi, Aug. 24 -- Sugar prices are likely to cool off as panic and speculative buying ease, with sufficient stocks available in the country, Indian Sugar & Bio-energy Manufacturers Association (ISMA) Director General Deepak Ballani said on Monday.

"We are hoping that the prices will go down because we have seen today that there is a trend that the ex-mill prices have started going down. So we are hoping that the effect of this will also come on the retail prices and the prices will rationalise," Ballani told ANI on the sidelines of the ISMA Press Conference.

Ballani said the rise in sugar prices over the past 20 days was driven by speculative and panic buying rather than a shortage of physical sugar.

"This price rise in the last 20...