Help sugar now or else, aid donors told

Fiji's main sugarcane farmers organisation has warned aid donors to front up now with badly needed assistance or face the consequences of salvaging a potentially bankrupt industry.

Sugar Cane Growers Council chief executive Surendra Sharma said aid donors should take heed as they will all be implicated if the industry fails.

"Aid donors will all have to spend a lot more to try to salvage the industry as well as deal with the wider implications when poverty levels spin out of control," Sharma said.

"The tunnel is dark and long and no light seems to be emerging at the end of it."

Sharma had earlier told FijiLive the SCGC had written to the EU and the NZ and Australian governments for assistance.

He said Australia had declined to help, but he was hopeful of getting some aid from the EU and NZ.

He said the sugar industry needed $60 million annually to keep it from dying a slow and painful death.

"It makes sense to subsidise this industry if for no other reason than to bring in $250 million of foreign exchange every year which in turn contributes some $1.25 billion to the country`s GDP.

"What this would mean is that the taxpayer spends $60 million a year to get back $1.25 billion."

Sharma said none of the "fancy ideas" that have been floated in the past few years to replace sugar´s $250 million foreign exchange contribution "seem to have had any substance".

"So we have no choice, but to keep the sugar industry alive albeit as a sick patient."

source:Fijilive