The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has rejected the construction of a sugar plant in Trung Khanh District in the northern province of Cao Bang, said Diep Kinh Tan, deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development on August 13.
Previously, Cao Bang Province had sort permission from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for the construction of a sugar plant in Trung Khanh District, near the Chinese border.
The investor for the sugar plant was to be the Corporation for Investment and Development of Northeast Industrial.
However, the offer has been rejected by Diep Kinh Tan, deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, who said that the country already has 40 sugar mills in operation with total capacity of 139,000 tons per day, producing 2.7 million tons of sugar, while domestic demand is only about 1.4 million tons.
In 2011-2012, Vietnam produced enough sugar for domestic consumption and exported about 200,000 tons.
However, the export of sugar is difficult and often runs at a loss because the price of sugar production in Vietnam is still higher than in many countries in the region, and the sugar quality is far from meeting standards required by sugar-exporting countries in the world.
Meanwhile, in a master plan for development of agricultural production from 2010 to 2020 and future plan till 2030, the Prime Minister has decided not to build new sugar plants, focusing on expanding the capacity of existing plants, with intensive investment in modernization of production lines to improve yield and product quality.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development concluded that the project proposed in Trung Khanh to build a sugar mill with a capacity of only 2,000 tons per day is too small and uneconomical, as it will be difficult to apply modern technology and will take in higher investment.
Therefore, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development does not agree with the proposal of building a new factory in Cao Bang.
