China’s State-owned food and oil giant COFCO Corporation announced Wednesday that it has taken a 61.25 percent controlling stake in Australia’s Tully Sugar Ltd, according to a statement released on the company’s website.

The 61.25 percent stake includes the 6.91 percent previously held by US-based agribusiness and food company Bunge Ltd, which had also been bidding for control of Tully. Bunge announced it was pulling out of the bid battle on Monday and was planning to sell its holding to COFCO.

Pan Honghuan, deputy general manager of COFCO Australia, said Bunge’s decision was an endorsement that COFCO’s proposal represented the strongest long-term partnership for Tully and Australia’s cane growers. COFCO paid A$44 ($46.93) per share for its controlling stake in the company.

“As China’s major importer of sugar, COFCO can offset its domestic sugar business through its own sugar refineries abroad through this successful takeover,” Gao Wang, a sugar researcher at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultants Ltd, told the Global Times.

Another bidder, Mackay Sugar Limited, Australia’s second largest sugar milling company, is considering various options, including the sale of its 31 percent stake in Tully, according to the Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday.

Tully Sugar is one of the largest sugar mills in Australia, and it produces 260,000 tons of raw sugar every year.

Sugar prices have been rising in recent years, prompting companies to seek greater control of raw resources.

The sugar price was 5,000 yuan per ton in 2009 and has since risen to 7,000 yuan per ton. 

“Control of the raw resources will be helpful to push forward the development of the food industry,” Xiang Jianjun, a food industry analyst with CIC Industry Research Center, told the Global Times Wednesday.

Xiang said COFCO could introduce Tully’s advanced technology to China to help with its own production, and that developing overseas is a trend for domestic companies.