Belarus President wants more output from sugar refineries

The output capacity of Belarusian sugar refineries should be increased, said President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko as he visited the Gorodeya sugar refinery on 23 September.

“We have a system for sugar, a structure, there is space to grow into. This is why raising the output of existing enterprises is the first thing that needs to be done,” said the head of state.

At present there are four sugar refineries in Belarus, namely in Skidel, Zhabinka, Slutsk and Gorodeya. The Belarusian sugar industry has been retooled and operates steadily, processing 26,800 tonnes of sugar beet per day. Since 2004 Belarus has been supplied with domestic sugar. Belarus is the CIS’ third largest sugar manufacturer after Russia and Ukraine. The choice of sugar products has considerably increased. In 2009 Belarus exported nearly 440,000 tonnes of sugar.

There are plans to raise the output of sugar made of sugar beet up to 650,000 tonnes per annum by 2015. To improve the economic effectiveness of the industry, several things have to be addressed. In particular, it is necessary to improve the technological value of sugar beet, its sugar content up to 18% and more, to reduce sugar beet storage and processing time, to ensure a balance between sugar beet procurement and the capacity to process sugar beet.

Alexander Lukashenko got familiar with the state and prospects of the Belarusian sugar industry as well as the manufacturing and economic state of the Gorodeya sugar refinery and prospects of its development. He examined the manufacturing premises and the entire manufacturing cycle.

The Gorodeya sugar refinery mainly offers granulated sugar. It is an ecologically friendly product. The manufacturing process uses no chemical additives. In 2009 the enterprise commissioned a line to manufacture cube sugar. Sugar stick production has been started. In February 2010 the enterprise installed a second cube sugar line with the output capacity up to 14 tonnes per day. It can manufacture sugar with various flavors.

The Gorodeya sugar refinery has designed and tested a new resource-saving technology to process sugar beet and store sugar syrup. The new technology is about 16% cheaper than the conventional one. The enterprise has also designed a new technology to manufacture brown sugar, which preserves valuable qualities of sugar beet.

The enterprise has completed a total retooling. By late 2010 the processing capacity is supposed to reach 8,000 tonnes per day. In the future the processing capacity will be raised up to 10,000 tonnes per day. In 2011-2015 around Br200 billion in investments will be used for this purpose.

In January-July 2010 the enterprise’s profit totaled Br51.5 billion, 210% up on January-July 2009, with the profitability at 21%. Net profit amounted to Br31.4 billion.

In January-August 2010 the Gorodeya sugar refinery exported 32,200 tonnes of sugar to Russia, 17,900 tonnes to Ukraine, 17,700 tonnes to Kazakhstan. Sugar was also exported to other CIS states and Mongolia.

The Belarus President also visited the Eurotarex company to get familiar with the manufacturing of packaging products. Eurotarex makes polymeric sacks to package sugar and other loose goods. Eurotarex products are shipped to Belarusian sugar refineries, flour industry enterprises and agricultural enterprises in Nesvizh District. Import substitution saves $2 million. Eurotarex can make 20 million packaging sacks per annum. In January-July 2010 the profitability of sales stood at 7.3%.