25 May 2010

Fiji Sugar says mills ready for new crushing season

1:35 pm on 25 May 2010

The Fiji Sugar Corporation says cane growers will not have problems with the efficiency of mills this season.

There were significant losses last year after planned upgrading work was not finished in time, resulting in poor sugar production by the mills.

The Chief Executive of Fiji Sugar, Deo Saran, says the industry is in a precarious state as many reforms have not been completed, including an upgrade of the mills.

But he says that has now been sorted out:

"Over the last six months or so we have been focusing on remedial works to fix up the problem we encountered last year and also the completion of the residual works that was there, so with that in place we are confident we will have a much, much smoother run this time around."

Mr Saran says the focus now has to be on improving output from the farms as the mills are not getting the quantity forecast when the plant upgrade were planned.