Sweet taste of success down South

The sugar industry in Southern Africa is a success story.

It is expanding against all odds, owing to favourable fluctuations in the market.

These are placing rival producer countries in precarious situations, more so with the global economic recession.

Key countries in the sub-region — such as South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique and Zambia — have embarked on ambitious projects to increase sugar production for both domestic and external markets.

The exception is Mauritius, which from 1997 to date has reduced its sugar factories from 17 to eight, and has been downsizing the labour force.

The move is deliberate; the nation hopes to surmount internal and external market forces.

The reduction of sugar mills in Mauritius is aimed at improving the throughput of the existing companies following the laying off of many workers.

The Action Plan for 2005-2015 hoped to address some of the problems plaguing the sugar industry.

For a while now, this Indian Ocean island has been recording losses in both production and income despite a 17 per cent dependence on external revenue from sugar exports.

A number of major sugar growers in the country have now abandoned the crop altogether, sold their farms or stopped investing in sugar production.

This has badly hit the sugar industry, a pillar of the country’s economy.

Not just for export

To many people in Mauritius, sugar-cane growing is the same as sugar civilisation. The crop is not simply for export.

Take, also, Mozambique: the South African-based Tongaat-Hulett had, by last year, invested more than $47 million in expansion of the sugar industry.

According to the agricultural processing and land management group, more than 800,000 hectares of land for sugarcane planting will be developed in the next few years as part of its investment in the neighbouring country.