Dr Clive Thomas

The way forward for sugar Part 1   Introduction In this column and next week’s, I shall undertake the final task in this series on Guyana’s sugar industry.

Today’s column examines the fourth and last of the ‘other proposals,’ which aim at finding a way forward for the sugar industry.

Privatization   This week I shall continue with the presentation of the second and third ‘other proposals.’

Introduction Starting today I shall focus on the way forward for Guyana’s sugar industry.

Introduction   Historically the sugar industry developed in Guyana because of its favourable agro-climatic coastal features.

Introduction Before considering options for the way forward in the sugar industry, I shall first examine challenges posed by its underperformance as revealed in the behaviour of the standard performance measures since the 1990s as well as last week’s analysis of Guysuco’s predicament.

Introduction   The serious weaknesses and massive underperformance of Guyana’s sugar industry during the past two to three decades were revealed in previous columns, through an evaluation of six standard performance measures that are routinely applied to the assessment of sugar industries.

This week I begin with a wrap-up discussion of factory performance measures as revealed at the level of the eight individual estates.

This week’s column concludes consideration of the sugar industry’s land productivity measure; that is tonnes cane (TC) per hectare (HA) of harvested land.

Culture of losses GuySuCo is a state-owned corporation. Readers already have in their possession firm details of how deeply mired it is in what I have termed “a sea of losses and indebtedness” (annual losses of about $6 billion and outstanding debt of $90 billion in 2013).

Introduction   When evaluating Guysuco’s profitability and/or losses as a performance indicator the conclusion reached was that the corporation has been “mired in a sea of losses and indebtedness since the 2000s.”

From a dynamic perspective, over the medium to long-term the profitability of the sugar industry as a whole, and GuySuCo in particular, is more than any other variable, the best representative indicator of its sustainability as a commercial venture.

In this week’s column I intended to conclude the evaluation of costs as a performance indicator.

I had reported a few weeks ago in this series data comparing the unit cost of sugar production for Caricom producers in 2005.

Last week’s column introduced six performance indicators for the sugar industry, which I will examine in coming weeks: production, costs, profitability, land productivity, factory productivity, and combined (land and factory) productivity, in that order.

Indicators Despite the unavailability of detailed audited GuySuCo accounts after 2009, in the coming weeks I shall focus on six performance indicators (production, costs, profitability, land productivity, factory productivity, and combined (land and factory) productivity) in assessing the sugar industry since 1990.

Before starting an assessment of the key performance indicators for the Guyana sugar industry, two issues need to be addressed.

I had earlier cautioned readers to be sceptical of the widely held view that the European Community’s (EC) denunciation of the Sugar Protocol (SP) in 2009 was “the final nail in the coffin of Guyana and the rest of Caricom’s sugar industry.” 

King Sugar As indicated previously, several analysts view the EC’s legal denunciation of the Sugar Protocol (SP) in 2009 as the “final nail in the coffin of Guyana and the rest of Caricom’s sugar industry.”

Introduction The world sugar prices for the period 1960 to 2013, which I presented last week, were formed in the ‘free market,’ where the sugar bought and sold is not subject to governmental regulation and control.