Achieving 331,000 tonnes is notable not only because GUYSUCO, under its present management, realised its production targets for 2002, surpassing any since 1976, but by reason of the performance of three estates - Blairmont, Wales and Uitvlugt. Their production was the highest in any year.

In his 2002 budget, Finance Minister Saisnarine Kowlessar laid special emphasis on the role of the sugar industry in maintaining employment and the contribution GUYSUCO will make towards export earnings. Notwithstanding the disadvantage of having its receipts denominated in Euros, thereby sustaining exchange rate deficits, the corporation’s earnings for 2002 were US$121 million, a 10 per cent increase over last year. To achieve that level of earnings GUYSUCO needed to increase significantly, its share of the CARICOM market, persuade Haitian consumers that Guyana’s sugar is competitive and to develop new products.

To justify Minister Kowlessar’s confidence in sugar as an earner of foreign currency and his reliance on higher levels of production, GUYSUCO will be required to play a more significant role in the national economy by stabling wages and modernising production. Attaining pre-1953 levels of sugar cane yields in its agricultural operations and integrating new value-added products as profit centres at the production level must be part of the management objectives into 2005 and beyond.

At the national level two years ago, Government expressed its commitment to modernising and re-structuring the sugar industry by signing an agreement with the World Bank that recognised the significant contribution the sugar industry makes to the economy. In 2005, preferential prices and secure markets shall not be available to Guyana’s sugar and there shall also be changes in European Union policy. The sugar industry in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago has already accepted closures as a viable solution.

In Guyana, however, the present PPP/C Government has pledged not to adopt the policy of closures and it is in that context that record production at the Blairmont, Wales and Uitvlugt estates is particularly heartening. Wales and Uitvlugt, as part of the GUYSUCO portfolio, can and will only survive 2005 upon a showing of higher productivity. While production costs amongst the Berbice estates, which includes Blairmont, is down from $US0.28 per pound, 3 years ago, to $US0.18 today , in order to address the structural and systemic problems of low sugar cane yields and underutilised factory capacity across the industry, GUYSUCO and Government devised a strategic modernisation plan for the industry. Such a plan, in conjunction with enhanced production by individual estates, must envisage a policy to reduce the industry’s high employment costs.