Holding firm to the position that sugar here is still viable, coupled with the expectation that this year’s production will reach the 100,000-tonne mark, President Irfaan Ali on Monday announced that a sugar refinery will be built at the shuttered East Demerara Estate at Enmore.

“Just to let you know that we are going to invest in GuySuCo because GuySuCo can be profitable. We are now working on a plan through which we will get the 100,000 tonnes this year. But more importantly, we have an investor who is in the final stage of an investment decision soon, to convert the Enmore sugar estate that is now closed, into a sugar refinery, to refine the brown sugar there,” the President told the Private Sector Commission’s Annual Corporate Dinner, held at the Marriott Hotel, in Kingston, Georgetown on Monday.

He informed that the factory will have “a capacity of doing 1,800,000 metric tonnes annually. So whatever we can supply we will supply, then we will have to fill the gap so refining would occur.”