(Jamaica Observer) Pan Caribbean Sugar plans to build a US$150-million ($13-billion), state-of-the-art sugar factory at its Monymusk estate in Clarendon to open in 2015.
The Chinese-owned company says the new plant will be able to process up to one million tonnes of cane per year, up from 350,000 tonnes at present.
It will employ only half the 300 staff at the existing facility, training them to do the more skilled jobs required of a modern, sophisticated plant.
However, more than 1,000 new jobs will be created elsewhere on the estate, mostly raising cane.
The company hopes to more than double its acreage at Monymusk, from 3,000 hectares to 8,000 hectares.
“Now we’re just making raw sugar, but in the future we’ll be looking at bagging sugar and packing sugar,” said Hanqi He, the company’s chief executive officer.
Among other things, the plant will have high-pressure boilers that are more efficient than those at the existing factory.
