A deficit of $920 million is being projected by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) at the end of this year.
This was revealed in the country’s mid-year economic report that was released by Finance Minister Winston Jordan last Wednesday. Audited end of year figures for GuySuCo have not been available for the last five years to enable a clear picture of how the company has been doing amid continuing government subventions, bond financing and major revamping of the industry.
At the end of June this year, GuySuCo had recorded a cash surplus of $843 million, a huge improvement from last year’s deficit of $3.8 billion for the same period and most likely linked to inflows from bond financing.
The report added that total receipts were $9.3 billion, of which $3.9 billion was received from the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited’s (NICIL) Special Purpose Unit (SPU) to fund GuySuCo’s operations and capital projects. This would be proceeds of the bond financing.
The corporation exported 37,834 tonnes of sugar, of which 33,263 tonnes was sold to the European Union market at a higher price than budgeted, which resulted in an increase of $1.3 billion in export sales.
Current expenditure was $8.1 billion at the end of June 2019 which translates to $2.7 billion lower than the same period last year. GuySuCo closed the Wales Estate at the end of 2016 and the East Demerara, Rose Hall and Skeldon estates at the end of 2017. GuySuCo’s capital expenditure for the first half of this year was tagged at $334 million, 90.3 percent lower than the budgeted amount of $3.4 billion, which was due to delays in funding for capital works.
