Cuba intensifies efforts to boost sugar industry

HAVANA, July 1 (Xinhua): The Cuban government doubled the purchasing price of sugarcane in order to encourage farmers to increase crop output, a senior industry official said Wednesday.

"The first priority for the industry is to produce sugarcane, and then to make honey, alcohol and other by-products," Deputy Sugar Minister Nelson Labrada told the official Granma newspaper.

The ministry has laid out new policy plans calling for farmers to double sugarcane production within the next five years, Labrada said.

"Besides increasing the output it is necessary to raise the efficiency, repair the roads and boost irrigation, among other tasks," said Labrada.

Cuba's sugar industry had its worst harvest in a century in 2010, for which Cuban leader Raul Castro replaced the sugar minister and a number of other key industry officials.

In the last harvest that finished in May, Cuban sugar production began to show signs of recovery with total production of refined sugar reaching 1.1 million tonnes.

For centuries, Cuban sugar accounted for 90 per cent of the country's export earnings, but in the last decade the production fell sharply, prompting authorities to carry out new strategies to revive it.

source: thefinancialexpress-bd