Six loss-making sugar mills owned by the state were shuttered in 2020 so that they may undergo modernisation and eventually become commercially viable once again.
Foreign firms team up to upgrade closed sugar mills
Submit final proposal on Tk 5,000cr modernisation plan
Brown sugar being sold for Tk 65 per kilogramme in front of the Bangladesh Sugar & Food Industries Corporation in the capital’s Motijheel. Photo: Amran Hossain
Companies from Japan, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates have teamed up to upgrade the recently shuttered six sugar mills of the Bangladesh Sugar & Food Industries Corporation (BSFIC), ensure profitability and export by-products.
Sutech Engineering Co of Thailand, Sharkara International of the UAE and Sojitz Machinery Corporation of Japan will invest Tk 5,000 crore under a joint venture within the next two years.
Sugarcane: now a headache for farmers
Hamidul Haq, a sugarcane grower in Basantapur village of Rangpur s Badarganj upazila, is fearing huge losses this year as the government has shut down six state-run sugar mills out of 15 just before the harvesting season.
Haq, who has been growing the crop for the last 15 years, said he had invested every penny he had to produce 340 quintals of sugarcane on his one-acre land this year.
But this year he fell into big trouble as Shyampur Sugar Mill turned out to be one of the closed mills, where Haq used to sell his produce at Tk 350 a quintal, or 100 kilograms.