Capital programmes on cogeneration, ethanol production, sugar refinery and special sugar packaging are progressing well.

This was highlighted this week by the Ministry of Sugar Industry acting permanent secretary Parmesh Chand at the 47th Session of the International Sugar Organisation (ISO) Council in Antigua, Guatemala.

Mr Chand stressed to the Council that sugar cane industry here was a vital part of the Fijian economy with a focus on diversifying revenue base using sugar cane as the raw material and implementing new initiatives such as cogeneration, sugar refinery for domestic and regional demands as well as ethanol production.

“The Fiji sugar cane industry provides livelihoods to about 25 per cent of our total population just over 840,000. It still is a major foreign exchange earner accounting for around 16 per cent of domestic exports and around $200 million in exports,” Mr Chand said.

The estimate for this crushing season is over 2.08 million tonnes of cane with an estimated sugar make of 232,000 tonnes. In the 2014 season, 1.83 million tonnes of cane were crushed to produce 226,368 tonnes of sugar.

Mr Chand informed the Council of the successful EU-ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly where discussions on fisheries and sugar, climate change and its impact on Small Island Developing States featured prominently.

“For Fiji, perhaps the highlight of that important meeting was the Fiji/EU High Level Political Dialogue and the signing with the EU of the €28 million ($FJ65.4million) National Indicative Programme under the European Development Fund, or EDF11, for the period 2014-2020.

“We look forward to further improvements in our relations particularly in the sugar sector with respect to the implementation of the remaining programmes under the Accompanying Measures Support Programme,” Mr Chand highlighted.

The ISO Council also heard that a team from the World Bank from the Pacific and South East Asia was in Fiji last week to explore opportunities to identify development projects that could attract funding both for sugar and non-sugar agriculture sectors.

Mr Chand said Fiji looked forward to continuing collaboration with ISO and member countries in all aspects of the sugarcane industry to benefit from well-established programmes, facilities and technology.