Havana, July 9 - Cuba is investing in sugar cutting combines, trucks and other equipment and retooling mills in preparation for a big jump in output in 2008-2009, the official media said Wednesday.
"The country is planning a 25 percent to 30 percent increase in sugar and molasses for the coming harvest and will meet refined sugar demand," the Juventud Rebelde newspaper quoted Orlando Garcia Ramirez, vice minister of sugar who testified before a parliament hearing on Tuesday.
"It is investing in refineries, distilleries, electrical generation capacity, increasing storage space and introducing high productivity sugar cutting combines," the paper said.
Cuba imported 22 Mann combines from Brazil for the just concluded harvest.
The harvest runs from December through April when the rainy season begins, but this year mills ground into June due to an unusually dry May.
The Cuban harvest is more than 80 percent mechanized and rains hamper cutting machines and trucks entering plantations.
Raw sugar production was 1.5 million tonnes for the just concluded 2007-2008 harvest, compared with 1.2 million tonnes the previous harvest, refined sugar doubled to 200,000 tonnes and molasses for animal feed increased 300 percent, the first increases in output since the industry was downsized by more than 50 percent in 2003.
Cuba consumes a minimum 700,000 tonnes of sugar per year, and 400,000 tonnes are destined for China.
Sugar Minister Ulises Rosales del Toro said in June that the industry had met all its external and internal obligations, after importing 200,000 to 300,000 tonnes of low-grade refined sugar from Brazil and Colombia in recent years.
Garcia told the parliament hearing 2007-2008 harvest did not meet its 1.6 million tonne plan due to the late arrival of supplies and other milling problems which he said would not occur again.
These problems have plagued the state-run industry for a number of years.
Nevertheless, Garcia said, foreign exchange earnings were 27 percent more than planned, or $50 million more, due to higher sugar prices.