Cuban sugar minister sees slightly improved crop Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - JosePertierra@aol.com Cuban sugar minister sees slightly improved crop By Marc Frank HAVANA, (Reuters) - Cuba's 2001-02 sugar crop is expected to weigh in above the previous harvest's disastrous 3.53 million tonnes of raw sugar, but the increase will not be great, Cuba's sugar minister was quoted as saying Monday. "In the coming harvest, there will be a little more cane, but...the amount of raw material is extremely modest," Monday's official daily Granma quoted Sugar Minister Ulises Rosales del Toro as stating over the weekend. "If we work very efficiently and in a stable way from the first day on, we could meet the plan and produce a bit more sugar," he said at a labor event. The ministry has not formally announced the 2001-02 plan, although Rosales told Reuters earlier this year he hoped it would be around 4 million tonnes. While the ministry has not specified how much sugar cane there is in the fields, local expert and state radio commentator Diosado Maso said last week, "There is 13 percent more cane to mill than last year." An official estimate of the crop is made in September. Maso, during a radio report on the crop, credited the end of drought conditions, that had affected most of the Caribbean island last year, and improved cultivation for the cane increase. MORE CANE BUT LESS RESOURCES But a foreign analyst of the economy and sugar crop, who asked not to be named, said that while there was more cane, there would be less resources available to carry out the harvest, a factor that could have an impact on raw sugar output. He explained that the Sept. 11. attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and Pentagon outside Washington, and ensuing events, had led to a drop in tourism and family remittances, two important sources of dollars for the already cash-strapped government of President Fidel Castro. He said some of the lost revenues were earmarked to import fuel and other harvest inputs for the sugar sector. Sugar Minister Rosales over the weekend reportedly urged cane cutters and millers to be more disciplined and work more efficiently, insisting that despite an improved crop, increased tonnage was not assured, according to Granma. He said some 50 mills would begin grinding in December, with another 50 mills expected to open in January. Milling was scheduled to end by May of 2002. The communist-governed island's sugar industry, which produced an average 7.5 million tonnes of raw sugar annually during the second half of the 1980s, was plunged into crisis by the collapse of European communism, its main market and source of financing and supplies. By 1997-98 the crop had declined to a record low 3.2 million tonnes. A recovery seemed underway as output increased to 3.76 million tonnes in 1998-99, and the following year to 4.06 million tonnes, before falling to 3.53 million tonnes in 2000-01. Cuba exports all but 700,000 tonnes of its crop, mainly to Russia and other east European countries. 13:00 10-15-01 Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytenv-10.16.01-04:08:41-19844