Sugarcane fields being harvested. Picture: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL/ALEXANDRA WEXLERSugar Africa, will spend R3.4bn over the next three-and-a-half years to expand production in Tanzania, the largest investment to date in the country’s sugar industry.
Tanzanian group, Kilombero Sugar, of which Illovo owns 75% and the Government of Tanzania, which owns 25%, has announced a Tsh 571.6bn expansion project. The expansion project has been under discussion and planning for a number of years and in addition to more than doubling current sugar production in order to meet increasing customer demand of Kilombero’s Bwana Sukari product range, it will also involve the construction of additional sugar storage and packaging facilities in order to reduce costs and increase the company’s branded pre-packaged capability.
There will be an almost three-fold increase in cane supply from Kilombero’s small-scale growers, from 600,000 tonnes currently to 1.7-million tonnes. He said Illovo Sugar was still committed to SA where its headquarters are, despite challenges to doing business there.