Introduction
In last week’s column I had presented time series information pertaining to GuySuCo’s factory performance for the two decades of the 1990s and 2000s. These data revealed that the factory conversion ratio for tonnes cane per tonne sugar, showed a definite improvement in performance, particularly when compared to the other indicator (tonnes cane per tonne sugar) which I had presented in the previous week’s column.
As readers should already know, in 2009 GuySuCo operated eight sugar factories; four of these in Berbice and the remaining four in Demerara. There has also been, for years now, a marked difference in the performance between these two counties in terms of tonnes cane per tonne sugar production and therefore we might say general factory efficiency. Overall, however, all eight of GuySuCo’s sugar factories suffer from serious diseconomies of scale. These are due to their comparatively small size on a global scale. Inevitably therefore, other factors being equal, we should expect their unit costs to be higher than