Cuba to help salvage Guyana’s sugar industry

May 27, 2015 6:12 am Category: latest news A+ / A-

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and Cuban Vice President of the Council of Ministers Ulises Rosales del Toro sharing a light moment

[www.inewsguyana.com] –

 

Cuban Vice President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Sugar and Agriculture, Ulises Rosales del Toro who is currently in Guyana as a special guest to share in the country’s 49th Independence celebrations, paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo.

 

The Prime Minister pointed out that part of their discussion was centered on areas of interest, particularly in the field of agriculture. He added that Cuba will work with Guyana in a joint effort to “help salvage our sugar industry.”

 

Further, he noted that Guyana will continue to work with Cuba to complete ongoing projects and programmes. The Prime Minister also thanked the Vice President for all the assistance that Guyana has been receiving from the country over the years since 1976, primarily in the area of medicine. [Extracted and modified from GINA]

This is interesting. The ecological system under which they grow sugar in Cuba is very different from the polder agri in Guyana.

The system we use in Guyana is not wrong. It's what happens with the cane after it reaches the factory that is wrong. The Chinese sold us a load of rubbish that they themselves don't now how to use or even fix. The machine is worse than doing the job by hand.

Even if they fix that Guyana cannot produce sugar at the marginal cost of Cuba, Fiji and other places.

We don't know that for sure. Don't forget that the productivity at GuySuCo was down to the PPP, who basically paid voters to lime about. Granger will kick their backside if they don't deliver? Why you think that they are trembling with fear?

I hope they will show some improvement by making the data available to the people who own that state-owned corporation.

* The truth is sugar is no longer a viable industry in Guyana. And do amount of reforms will get the industry back to profitability.

* NO WAY THE PPP WOULD HAVE SHUT DOWN THE SUGAR INDUSTRY.

* The PNC/AFC needs to do the right thing---gradually shut down the industry.

* Sell off the lands to the private sector---and watch them do their magic---other agri products will replace sugar---and agro processing will BOOM.

Rev

Your statements are conflicting.

Just curious, how is the bauxite company doing financially?  Is it government owned?  How many employees? 

Well by these questions you will see that I was out of touch with Guyana for a little while.

Don’t we get quota preference in EU for sugar?  How does it work?

The EU brought in some rules that has penalised former colonies. They increased their tariffs and banned imports of some finished goods. Like you can't export small bags of sugar, or you have to sell your stock to a European middleman who then rips you off.

In addition the sugar industry on that island is almost dead, due to high costs and mismanagement.  This is the blind leading the blind.

Just to show how badly Guyana has fallen in the late 70s Guyanese sugar experts were used by other parts of the Caribbean, including the DR, because of research done on sugar cane and on production techniques.  Of course as those folks left, no one replaced them.  These were Guyanese Bookers folkis who remained after nationalization.

It isnt just Skeldon.

Sold to the Chinese and the Russians long ago.  They should have done the same to Guysuco, but politics dictated that sugar workers shouldnt suffer the loss of employment which the bauxite workers endured.

So how is Guyana affected with these conditions?  Thanks.

They didnt penalize former colonies.  German and the others just got tired of subsidizing former British and French colonies.  The EU is a net EXPORTER so didnt need the ACP sugar. 

Australia and others forced the EU to stop subsidizing ACP sugar as there was a sugar glut in global markets because the EU was dumping sugar.  There are still subsidies for EU producers, but they are EU taxpayers, so ACP countries cannot demand the same treatment.

I really do not know why people expected this neocolonial arrangement to0 last forever.  This was to facilitate Bookers and Tate & Lyle (sugar) and Geest and Fyffes (banana).  They have since moved on, so there is no more need to subsidize these industries.

I have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to the middle man and the EU banning imports from ACP countries of finshed products. Guyana doesnt sell finished products. We sell partially processed sugar, rice, bulk rum, etc.  Jamaica sells a bunch of branded products.

Mismanagement can be corrected.  We need a good analysis to prove that sugar is dead.

Interesting.  I don't think any mass scale workers should have to endure unemployment.  Some kind of transition has to be planned.

Sugar prices are low, so that inefficient producers cannot survive.  This is why Guyana is one of the few Caribbean nations whcih still sees sugar as a serious export. I believe even the DR, which 40 years ago was one of the world's largest exporters, now uses sugar mainly for domestic purposes.  The Cuban industry is a shadow of what it used to be, and was never able to recover from the loss of the massive subsidies which it received from the USSR.

Maybe Brazil can help.

The PPP provided no transition for bauxite. The industry was sold and the Chinese in particular fired the vast bulk of the workers, leaving Linden as a ghost town.

Linden should diversify.  The PNC destroyed the bauxite company long before 1992.

So if Granger told Guysuco "drop dead", you would have been OK with that!

Of course not.  Your screams of the PNC killing Indos by sending them to the breadline would have been quite shrill.  You see in your head Indians are special people who deserve special treatment.

* The Rev would support that move 100%

* East Indians can do better than slaving away in cane fields.

* Many cane cutters who have migrated to the US and are now gainfully employed in real estate and other fields. Cane cutters have skills and talent.

* The PPP has always wanted to keep East Indians tied to the cane fields---that nonsense must stop.

* Once again, the Rev supports the phasing out of the sugar industry in Guyana.

Rev

The PNC does not have what it takes to run the sugar industry.  You have to invest in people and research.  Pumping Money into the sugar industry is what the PPP was doing.  If they failed, then the PNC would also fail.

The whole thing started when several developing countries like Brazil and Thailand challenged the preferential access ACP had in the Euro market. The challenge took place in WTO. Long before they went ahead and sink US$200 million into Skeldon many people told them that the market will not last. But they put a good cussin on the critics.

Why is the current GuySuco Board members still around? They should all be fired immediately.

Now that Guysuco is insolvent, can you tell us what a great succss the PP  were with Guysuco? After all its people appointed by Jagdeo who run it.

I remember the heated debates on GNI and the many articles which you wrote on this topic.

I especially remember the arrogant dismissal of you by the PPP who boasted that Guyana would be producing 600k tons with production costs at 11c.

Like you nah listen to our president??? He is not firing anybody till he knows what they doing and how well they doing it. He is giving everyone in the old PPP administration a chance to redeem themselves and provide him with evidence that they are worth their job. Look how Chronicle already see a change of tune with the same people. Look how the country get clean up in quick time by the same people who did F all under the PPP.

Same crap about Amaila Falls.  Free power to give away.  If only they knew the true situation.  That's why you can't have dunda heads in goverment, especially in a critical ministry that deals with energy infrastructure.

If some nightmare scenario develops and GECOM decides that the PPP has a basis for a recount and this results in the PPP getting 33 seats Chronicle will once again resort to their PPP oriented behavior.

They think that the govt owns the paper so they should be shills for the ruling party.  Who ever they might be.

New CEO of GUYSUCO said that only 20 million dollars needed to bail out the sugar industry.    

If the PPP was such a success why does Guysuco need to be bailed out?