Second Crop to Commence in July

The Guyana Sugar Corporation (Guysuco) commences its Second Crop operations in seven of its eight (8) factories given favourable weather conditions by the last week in July, 2009. While the state of the art factory at Skeldon Estate is scheduled to commence operations by week ending August 21, 2009.

The industry is expected to achieve a production of about 245,000 tonnes, exceeding last year’s production by 19,000 tonnes despite this year’s low first crop production, which saw 83,356 tonnes sugar being produced, the lowest First Crop production since 1991.

The Corporation and the workforce should seek to produce and export to Europe as much as the possible before the full 36 per cent price cut is implemented on October 01, 2009. The hefty price cut will result in a decline of the price of our sugar exported to Europe from €524 to €335 per tonne. Our sugar industry, therefore, stands to lose approximately G$7.4B per year, a drop of its revenue from sales to EU from US$103 million per year to US$66 million for the shipment of 167,000 tonnes of sugar. In order to mitigate the effects of the cut the Corporation has initiated a programme of expansion aimed at increasing production and efficiencies, while reducing unit cost through economies of scale.

Another potent factor the Corporation must be mindful of is the need to have a peaceful industrial relations climate. Is the Corporation so committed? Meanwhile, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) submitted two (2) sets of claims for the Union’s two (2) bargaining units – the field and factory workers and the field foremen/forewomen.

The field foremen claims were sent since March 24, 2009 and the other on June 11, 2009. The Corporation has so far not informed the Union of its time-table to discuss the two (2) separate sets of claims. The Union is looking forward to addressing an increase in pay vis-à-vis the weakening of workers’ purchasing power over the past few years and the need to lessen absenteeism and the high turnover in the industry’s field workforce since higher rates of pay elsewhere continues to bedevil the stability of the industry’s workforce.

Guysuco is said to be actively attending to its field operations inclusive of its tillage target and proper husbandry practice to realize a production target of 320,000 tonnes – an achievement in the years of 2002, 2003 and 2004 – and later to realize the ultimate target of 420,000 tonnes.