Cuba producing sugar with new technology

Cuba producing sugar with new technology
Last Updated: Monday, February 06, 2012, 11:21

Cuba producing sugar with new technology Havana: Cuba has begun to
employ a new technology to produce white sugar, a measure that improves
its quality, avoids the refining process and reduces the cost of
manufacture, a media report said Sunday.

The technology, which to date had never been used in the island's sugar
industry, uses a sulphur salt produced in Guatemala that - once
dissolved in water - directly adds to the bleaching, according to
official daily Juventud Rebelde.

The procedure replaces the method of "sulphurizing" the sugarcane juice
via the combustion of sulphur, which is very damaging to the
environment, the report says.

The daily also reported that the sugar produced with this method can be
sold for a higher price than either crude or standard refined sugar on
the world market and that its use is spreading rapidly.

Rigoberto Toledo, the director of the Melanio Hernandez sugar refinery
in central Sancti Spiritus province, the first to use the new
technology, said that using it they will be able to optimize the
production process and avoid refining the raw sugar, a situation that
will reduce production costs.

That refinery is scheduled to produce between 15,000 and 17,000 tonnes
of white sugar during the current harvest, all of which will be destined
for local consumption.

Cuba is carrying out its current sugar harvest at a time when it is in
the midst of restructuring the sector by replacing the Sugar Ministry
with the Sugar Agro-industry Business Group with the aim of achieving
more efficient management, employing new technologies and generating
exports to finance its own expenses.

According to government forecasts, this harvest should see a 20 percent
rise in sugar production, after the country in 2011 experienced a slight
recovery and after the drastic plunge in the sugar harvest registered in
2010, the worst in 105 years.

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