The director of the State Sugar Council (CEA), Jose Dominquez Pena, announced a re-launch of the sugar industry yesterday Wednesday 4 February 2015. It hopes to open two small sugar mills in the east and to invest some RD$800 million, possibly as early as this month.
Dominguez said that they are considering planting an additional 30,000 tareas (1,886 hectares) of sugarcane in the east at a cost of RD$144 million. He stated that the two sugar mills would be producing brown sugar, and that one will be set up in Monte Plata and the other in San Jose de Los Llanos, in the province of San Pedro de Macoris.
He said that President Danilo Medina is interested in re-launching the sugar industry, while acknowledging that the days when sugar was the mainstay of the economy are long gone.
Dominguez Pena informed that in order to re-launch the industry, the CEA is recovering its lands. In Cumayasa, in the province of La Romana it has recovered between 30,000,000 and 40,000,000 square meters and that in Sabana Grande de Boya it has 1,142,000 tareas (71,809 hectares).
The CEA director said that they are projecting a yield of 21,000 tons for the current sugar harvest, and that as of yesterday they had produced 10,000 bags. He reported that the CEA-managed Porvenir sugar mill was working very well. “The colonos (people who produce sugarcane on their own lands for the CEA) are very happy, because last year, after the harvest, and those who were owed since 1998 and 2005, were paid RD$217 million, and right now we are working on major financing in order for the colonos to plant a lot of sugar cane once again,” he said. At present, as well as the Porvenir sugar mill that is in the hands of the CEA, the state has sugar mills in Barahona, which are managed by Dominican and foreign companies and in Montellano, in Puerto Plata, in the hands of a United States company.
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2015/02/05/i998861_relanzarn-industria-azucarera-con-instalacin-dos-ingenios.html