Egypt’s largest sugar beet producer, the Delta Sugar company, doubled its net profit in the financial year 2001, earning 86.23 million Egyptian pounds ($18.7 million) this year, up from EP43.3 million in the previous year 2000. This rise in profits was attributed mainly to a 44 percent sales boost, which totaled EP413.15 million in 2001.
Established in 1978, Delta Sugar grows sugar cane on newly reclaimed land in the Nile delta region. The company’s manufacturing facility is located in Kafr Al-Sheikh. The company’s annual output totals over 200,000 tons of white sugar and 100,000 tons of beet molasses and beet pulp, for use in animal feed.
Delta Sugar aims to raise its current production capacity to 250,000 tons by 2004, through a two billion EP investment in four new sugar beet factories. The company holds a 25 percent interest in the newly established Al-Fayoum, a joint stock company that produces and trades in white sugar.
Plans to refine imported raw sugar during the beet processing off-season, between June and December, are also under study in a bid to maximize Delta Sugar’s production capacity, company sources disclosed.
Sugar industry experts estimate Egypt’s sugar cane and beet production at 1.4 million tons, while local consumption stands at some two million. Water-strapped Egypt thus suffers from a 600,000-ton annual sugar deficit. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
