Local sugar production to resume in mid-2013

Annual output expected to reach 40,000 tons

Works to restore the privately owned sugar factory in Anjar were launched recently, a few months after the government announced plans to boost the cultivation of beets. The Cabinet allocated an annual stipend of $16 million for five years to promote the cultivation of sugar beets as an alternative for cannabis plantation in Baalbeck, Hermel, and Akkar.

Said Al Mays, director of the cooperative of sugar beets said: “Farmers will start planting beets in the spring and harvest the crops in the fall. So, the factory will be ready to manufacture sugar in September 2013.”

About 45,000 donums (1 donum makes 1,000 square meters) will be used to plant sugar beets. The annual harvest is expected to reach some 250,000 tons, producing around 40,000 tons of sugar.

Mays was optimistic about the prospects of the endeavor: “Growing sugar beets will create a strategic reserve fulfilling part of the local demand.” He said the annual local consumption is around 150,000 tons of sugar.

The Anjar facility, the only local sugar factory, is owned by Raeef Al Kassem. The plant was last shut down in 2005. Throughout the subsidy plan, the government will lease the factory through a contract with Kassem.

According to Mays, the industry will survive as long as the State subsidy is sustained.