Huge loan revives country's biggest sugar mill

Sugar production in Mozambique received a major boost on Friday with a US $12 million loan by the Development Bank of Southern Africa to rehabilitate the country's biggest sugar mill, reports said.

Bank officials were quoted as saying that they expected production at the Marromeu mill and cane fields to reach full capacity of 100,000 mt by 2003 from the current 30,000 mt, by which time the sugar complex should be fully restored. Production at Marromeu, near the port city of Beira, was damaged during the country's 16-year long civil war and was only revived in 1998 by majority Mauritian-owned sugar producer Companhia de Sena SARL.

"The funding will be utilised for the rehabilitation of an existing sugar mill, associated infrastructure and the replanting of an area of 10,728 hectares of sugar cane," said the bank in a statement. Sugar consumption in Mozambique is an average 469,000 mt according to official estimates, from a total of four mills.