As we drive around the island of Mauritius, I suddenly realise we've driven a few kilo meters and I've seen nothing but sugar cane. Sugar cane is everywhere in Mauritius.
The tall green plants cover a third of this Indian Ocean island which is roughly the same size as Luxembourg. Sometimes the stalks stand up straight, and at other times, they slant - a built in resistance for survival on a windswept island.
Mauritius’s sugar industry will probably earn 6.6 billion rupees ($210 million) for the 2012 harvest, the country’s sugar syndicate said in its first estimate for the crop.
“Market prices in export destinations appear to have remained firm,” Devesh Dukhira, chief market officer at the Port Louis-based MSS, said in an e-mailed response to questions.
Harel Freres Ltd. (HFRERES), a Port Louis, Mauritius-based sugar producer, will have a record 85,000 metric tons of specialty sugar production this year because of beneficial weather, according to Jean Arthur Pilot-Lagesse, general manager of the company’s sugar division.
Medine Sugar Estates Ltd., a Mauritian producer of the sweetener, said output may fall as much as 8.7 percent to 42,000 metric tons this season as drought hampers cane growth.
Cane height is currently “lagging behind” normal levels, spokeswoman Sophie Desvaux said by phone today from the capital, Port Louis. The area under cane cultivation is the same as last year, when the company produced 46,000 tons of sugar, she said.
Mauritius is unlikely to this year match the 452,518 metric tons of sugar produced in 2010, which beat an industry forecast, said the country’s Chamber of Agriculture.
Drought has affected sugar-cane growth and the 2011 crop may not be able to recover enough when normal weather conditions return, the Port Louis-based chamber said in an e-mailed statement today. The industry’s 2010 harvest beat an expected 450,000 tons and was lower than the 467,234 tons produced in 2009, it said. Factories milled 4.36 million tons of cane.
PORT LOUIS - Mauritius sees land abandonment as a threat to the sugar industry, producers said on Thursday.
Sugar, a centuries-old pillar of the Indian Ocean island's almost $10 billion economy, accounts for roughly 3 percent of gross domestic product and is a major employer.
"The sugar industry can co-exist with property development and energy production but land abandonment by small planters represents a threat to the industry," Cyril Mayer, CEO of Harel Frere, a sugar manufacturer and property developer, told Reuters.
Mayer said unless the price of sugar per tonne rose to 15,000 Mauritius rupees from 12,700 rupees currently, small planters will continue to leave sugar cane cultivation.
The Chamber of Agriculture said in June Mauritius sugar output will fall to 450,000 tonnes this year from 467,234 tonnes in 2009 largely due to a reduced area under cultivation.
The country has been losing about 2,200 hectares of sugar cane fields annually. In 2009, it lost 1,900 hectares and the forecast is maintained for this year.
Sugar producers have been hit hard after the European Union cut its guaranteed price for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) sugar by 36 percent. The final tranche took effect last October.
"I am confident that we will achieve rapidly the 15,000 rupees per tonne of sugar. We should continue to implement the sugar sector reform programme and also keep on cutting cost," said Jacques d'Unienville, CEO of Omnicane, a leading producer.
He told Reuters a Bank of Mauritius decision to slash the key interest by 1 percentage point will also help the industry by containing the appreciation of the rupee against the euro.
Large-scale producers are diversifying their revenue by producing electricity and ethanol and have shed human labour for machines. But small-scale farmers have found it harder to cope.
Omnicane said it will produce between 175,000 and 180,000 tonnes of refined sugar in 2011 up from 100 000 tonnes this year as it refinery reached cruising speed.
D'Uniemville said Omnicane also sees big potential in ethanol production.
"Last year Mauritius exported 100,000 tonnes of molasses. I think we could use some 80,000 tonnes of it to produce 20 million litres of ethanol.
"Mauritius imports around 125,000 litres of gasoline per year. We could use a percentage of the ethanol produced locally as additive to the gasoline. Tests have already been conducted and it showed it can be done," he said.
Cyril Mayer said Mauritius which produces 18 percent of its power from burning bagasse, the waste generated when crushing sugar cane, can increase this production to 25 percent by 2025.
"What we need is to develop and spread high fibre content sugar cane around the island. Our neighbour Reunion island is already doing it," he said.
source: reuters
The Ministry of Agro Industry, Food Production and Security and the Mauritius Sugar Producers’ Association signed this morning in Port Louis an Agreement regarding the implementation of the package for metayers of sugar cane.
In his address, the Minister of Agro Industry, Food Production and Security, Mr. Satish Faugoo, who signed the Agreement on behalf of the government, recalled that this Agreement has been made possible today thanks to the Prime Minister, Dr. Navin Ramgoolam who, when concluding the deal on sugar reform with the MSPA in December 2007, had insisted that the metayers should also be taken on board, so that they may also benefit from the reform.
In view of the complexities of the issues, it has taken quite some time to complete the exercise and come up with measures that have now been accepted by all stakeholders, Minister Faugoo added. The Agreement covers rental charges, land swapping, buying back of metayers' rights and sale of land to metayers.
The rental charge has now been fixed at a uniform rate of 10% of the sugar accruing to metayers based on the final assessment made by the Control Board as compared to 10% to 25% previously. Land swapping will enable owner estates to propose alternative land of similar value to metayers if the land which the latter are occupying is considered to be strategic land.
This Agreement also makes provision for the possibility for metayers to sell their “metayers right” to owner estates against payment of compensation and also to buy the land they are presently occupying if it is considered as non strategic or an alternative plot of land if the land they are occupying is considered to be strategic by the owner estate.
The Chairperson of the Mauritius Sugar Producers’ Association, Mr. Jacques D’Unienville, for his part said that this Agreement is a win-win situation for all those concerned and that these terms have been reached after many working sessions and is based on a consensus reached by all parties concerned.
Metayers have over the past six decades or so significantly contributed to the development of the sugar industry. This Agreement will benefit around 1 100 metayers who occupy 3 430 arpents of land across the country.
source: isria
About 2,000 people working in Mauritian sugar industry on Saturday demonstrated in the streets of Port-Louis to demand an increase in their wages in addition to an equitable share of riches in the island.
The demonstrators, who were carrying placards and other banners, invaded the streets of the capital for more than an hour, before moving to the headquarters of the Mauritian Sugar Producers Association (MSPA), where the trade unionists spoke to the management.
Serge Jauffret, the chairman of the union, CSG-Solidarity, said that the sugar companies had accumulated huge riches produced by workers and self-employed craftsmen for several decades.
â?They set up the capital which the companies have invested in other economic sectors of the country, gaining huge profits,â? he said, and expressed regret t hat 5,500 workers in the sugar industry had not benefited from any increase in t h eir wages since 2000.
He said they produced the same quantity of sugar with less workers.
The trade union also demanded an equitable sharing of riches in the island, with an increase of 1,000 rupees in wages for all workers in the country's economic sectors, a drop in the electricity prices, a free solar water-heater to all families, a drop in the cost of Internet and the restoration of the right to strike.
source: africanmanager
The European Investment Bank (EIB) granted Mauritius a loan of 15 million euros to fund the construction of two sugar refineries as part of a programme to reform the sugar industry in the Island.
In addition to building two new refineries, the loans will help to improve storage and handling facilities, as well as to fund the expansion works of an existing refinery, according to a statement made available Tuesday to the media in Brussels, Belgium, by the EIB.
The European Union (EU) had decided to mobilize, via the EIB, a total of 100 million euros to help ACP countries that are sugar producers to face the gradual decrease in the price of this product in European markets.
These loans are consistent with the overall strategy to improve the sugar sector, adopted by the Mauritian government to ensure the sustainability of its sugar industry.
The loans granted by the EU will create at least 70 new jobs in addition to main taining some 500 workers in the sugar industry of this Island in the Indian Ocean, the statement said.
source: afriquejet
The FINANCIAL -- The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to provide a EUR 15m loan to Omnicane to construct two sugar refineries in Mauritius as part of the European Union’s wider support of reform in the Mauritius sugar industry.
The funding for Omnicane will also improve sugar storage and handling facilities, and extend an existing mill. The EIB’s support follows a EUR 13m loan made in August 2009 to FUEL Sugar Milling Company Ltd. Both loans will benefit from an interest subsidy from the 10th European Development Fund (EDF).
According to EIB, the Mauritius Sugar Reform Project is the first EIB funded initiative that implements the 2006 Port Moresby Declaration through which ACP-EC Council of Ministers agreed to mobilise EUR 1.5bn to contribute to the high adaptation costs ACP sugar producing countries have faced following gradual sugar price reduction across European markets. The investment is part of a wider adaptation strategy developed for the Mauritian sugar sector by both industry and government to ensure the long term viability of the sector.
“The European Investment Bank is pleased to work closely with Omnicane and FUEL in developing these modern facilities and helping to improve the global competitiveness of the Mauritian sugar industry. This is the first project that implements the Port Moresby Declaration and is yet another example of successful cooperation between the EIB and the European Commission supporting EU policies.” said Plutarchos Sakellaris, European Investment Bank Vice President responsible for Africa.
"The European Union has been supporting the sugar sector reform in Mauritius since 2006. In this context EUR 135m of grant funds have been allocated for the period 2006-2010 to be disbursed as budget support to the Government of Mauritius. The objective of this financial assistance is to contribute to ensuring the commercial viability and sustainability of the sugar sector for it to continue fulfilling its multifunctional role in the Mauritian economy as well as to increase the country's economic competitiveness. The EIB's intervention greatly contributes to achieving this objective." said Ambassador Alessandro Mariani, Head of the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Mauritius.
Support provided to Omnicane and FUEL will create some 70 new jobs, in addition to the employment of 500 existing workers. Refined sugar produced by the two companies will be sold to German company Südzucker, world market leader in the sugar sector, under a long-term agreement.
source: finchannel
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