GEORGETOWN, Guyana – The Guyana government says it will build a sugar refinery at the Enmore Estate , which has been closed since 2018.
“We have an investor, who is in the final stage of an investment decision soon, to convert the Enmore sugar estate that is now closed into a sugar refinery,” President Irfaan Ali told the annual dinner of the Private Sector Commission’s (PSC) on Monday night.
Ali did not name the investor, but said that the Enmore facility would be able to refine up to 180,000 metric tonnes of brown sugar annually
Guyana is projecting to increase brown sugar production to 100,000 tonnes annually from this year and President Ali said that this means that Guyana would have to import some sugar for refinement.
“Whatever we can supply, we’ll supply then we’ll have to fill the gap so refining will occur here,” he said, adding that the facility is expected to provide opportunities for “hundreds of upskilled jobs”.
The Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) had in 2019, commissioned a study to determine whether Plantation White sugar could be used a substitute for white sugar.
However, the Guyana Manufacturers and Services Association (GMSA) later protested plans by Belize to seek a 40 per cent Common External Tariff (CET) on extra-regionally produced refined sugar.
“If manufacturers were to use plantation white instead of refined sugar, for reasons of quality, products will no longer be as acceptable to consumers and will not be able to compete on the basis of quality with products coming into the region,” the GMSA said then.
