Chinese company to buy remaining sugar factories

The Government Tuesday announced that it has identified a buyer for the three remaining state managed sugar factories.

The impending sale of the Bernard Lodge, Monymusk and Frome Sugar Estate follows that of the two other debt burdened factories in St. Thomas and Trelawny.

The Agriculture Minister made the announcement in a statement to

Gordon House on Tuesday afternoon.

The Agriculture Minister told MPs that Cabinet has approved the sale of the Monymusk, Frome and Bernard Lodge estates to Chinese company called Complant 

“Complant will acquire, based on their proposal, the three factories and attendant lands for US$10 million or $774 million and will also lease some 18,000 hectares of cane lands for US$35 per hectare per annum of $310 for a period of 50 years renewable for another 25 years. In essence the country stands to gain revenue of $828.6 million in the first year of the agreement and $54.6 million per annum thereafter,” Dr. Tufton said.  

Slight delay    

But even while the new deal has been approved the Chinese company won’t have full control of the three estates until the end of the 2010/2011 crop year. 

That’s when the Government’s short term deal with British firm Tate and Lyle to manage the estates comes to an end. 

The Opposition thought that the wait was troubling.

“Why are we going to wait another year before they will take over. It seems to me that whatever the negotiations require we should pursue them taking over at the beginning rather than at the end of that crop year because there is always a difficulty in transition,” Dr. Omar Davies said.

“Once we start taking off the cane in December Complant will have the opportunity to go in and do whatever they want to do but part of the agreement going forward is for them once they sign to have access to the facilities to start fine tuning their plans. They have had access before and we are going to give them full access so while we operate they will know exactly what they need to do by the end of the year,” Dr. Tufton said.

The Agriculture Minister also argued that divestment was a process not an event.

Long Pond  

Meanwhile, Dr. Tufton also sought to downplay concerns about news of the impending closure of the Long Pond sugar estate in Trelawny which the Government sold last year.

He said he too had been caught off guard by news that it would be closed for the next crop year but had since been assured by the management it was a temporary measure to allow for repairs to the factory.