Egypt’s state-run Delta Sugar has announced it is increasing sugar output and building a new sugar refinery.

Masoud Hamed, director of the company’s financial administration department, said there would be a 14.5 per cent increase in output to 300,000 tonnes this year, Reuters reported.
Delta Sugar’s 2006 white sugar output was about 262,000 tonnes, while its production of beet molasses and beet pulp remained unchanged at 100,000 tonnes, he said.
“‘We are aiming to produce this year about 300,000 tonnes of white sugar and 110,000 tonnes of beet molasses and pulp to meet the growing demand in the market,” Hamed said.
Delta Sugar, Egypt’s largest sugar beet producer, is also finalising a deal to build a $131 million refinery north of Cairo to boost production, an Investment Ministry source said.
The new refinery, Delta 2, will have a capacity of about 150,000 tonnes a year. Delta sugar is also planning to add a $70 million production line that could produce about 50,000 tonnes.
Earlier this year, the company said in a statement it had received six offers of land to build the new refinery.
The statement said the company had received an offer from the family of Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the late president of the UAE, to build the refinery in Sharqiya, north of Cairo.
Should Delta Sugar accept that offer, it will have enough capital to finance another project for a new factory, most likely in North Sinai, the company said.
Delta Sugar, however, declined to say whether or not it had accepted the UAE offer.
Egypt has recently adopted a new plan to become self-sufficient by shifting from sugar cane production to beet, which is easier to harvest.
Egyptian entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris said last year he was in the process of establishing a sugar factory that would come on stream in 2009 in the governorate of Alexandria on the north coast.