President Filipe Nyusi commissions white sugar refinery producer Tongaat Hulett

President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi has commissioned a refinery owned by the South Africa-headquartered company Tongaat Hulett, which producing white sugar, at the sugar mill in Xinavane in Maputo province. Production from the refinery is expected to be sufficient to meet the domestic demand for white sugar for the next seven to ten years.

Using state-of-the-art technology equipment, the refinery can produce 90,000 tonnes of white sugar every year, to supply industries inside the country and abroad that require highly refined sugar.

Speaking shortly after inaugurating the refinery on Friday, Filipe Nyusi opined it will have a major impact on the Mozambican economy, and on the lives of sugar farmers whose cane is purchased by the Xinavane company.

Currently, small farmers in Manhica and Magude districts supply about 20 per cent of the cane used by the company.

“With the production of refined white sugar in Mozambique, the country will save the foreign exchange that was used to import this product”, the 59-year old Mozambican politician declared.

“Right now, the Mozambican companies that use this product will have white sugar that is refined in Mozambique.”

Mozambique consumes over 70,000 tonnes of white sugar a year, around 90 percent of which is imported. The Xinavane refinery should put an end to these imports. Soft drinks companies, notably the Mozambican factories of the Coca-Cola Company, should now be able to acquire their refined sugar from a Mozambican concern rather than importing it.

It took 18 months to build the refinery. In the construction phase, 605 workers were employed, 436 of them Mozambicans. In the operational phase, there will be 90 permanent jobs at the refinery.