SUGARCANE growth and the sugar law is expected to help develop the sugar business and to enable sugar businessmen to survive for the long term, said U Win Htay, the vice chairman of Myanmar Sugar Development Public Co Ltd.
Local sugar entrepreneurs are being faced with high costs of production and cannot compete with the quality of imported sugar, it is learned.
Sugar mills are not fully operational as they are too old, not being able to run to their full capacity. There is also no technology to recycle the byproducts like generating electricity or making compost from bagasse or producing ethanol from the sugarcane juice. The production cost of sugar turns out rather high.
Government intervention is therefore needed to render the sugarcane businessmen able to buy new equipment for sugar mills. The number of sugarcane growers nationwide has been seen to be decreasing due to not receiving government subsidies as before resulting in the decline of sugarcane plantations. To boost sugar production we are in dire need of government’s subsidies, said U Tin Maung Lat, a sugarcane grower from Lewe town.
The previous government permitted private companies to run sugar mills under a 30-year contract.—Zar Zar
Source: The Global New Light Of Myanmar
