East Coast Demerara : Guyana has advanced its method of packaging sugar in a direction that guarantees the attraction of a premium price on the international market, with the commissioning of the US$12.5M packaging plant at Enmore, East Coast Demerara last evening.
Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud described the commissioning of the facility as the fulfillment of government’s commitment to address the challenges in the sugar industry locally and externally.
“What we see here is a road map and a vision of where we want to take this industry, an industry where we are putting a lot of emphasis on value added,” Minister Persaud said. Stakeholders in the sugar industry including dedicated sugar workers and management of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) attended the milestone event in large numbers.
President Bharrat Jagdeo who delivered the feature address at the commissioning ceremony hailed the contributions of all stakeholders in the industry and acknowledged the significant role the sugar industry continues to play.
The industry contributes 16 percent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and is the means of livelihood for about 17 percent of Guyana’s population which directly or indirectly depend on the commodity.
President Jagdeo assured of government’s commitment to the industry noting that it is reflected in its investment in the Skeldon sugar factory which he continues to tout as the largest single investment ever made by the Government. “We have kept the sugar industry in Guyana alive when industries in the rest of the world including in the Caribbean are failing. St Kitts, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago are out of sugar because of the difficulties that we have faced in the past,” President Jagdeo said.
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