India ready to help preserve Guyana’s sugar industry

India’s Minister of State, Satya Pal Singh, who is on a four-day visit to Guyana, on Wednesday spoke of technologies that have been developed in his country for the sugar industry over the years.

During talks with President David Granger, he said India is ready to assist Guyana to preserve its sugar industry, according to a statement from the Ministry of the Presidency.

Despite the Government’s move to scale down the sugar industry over the past two years and firing over 2,000 sugar workers, there are still a number of persons employed by the remaining estates.

The Government maintains that it has no intention of shutting down the industry.

According to the Ministry’s statement, Guyana’s Head of State informed the Indian Minister that his Government is keen on restoring the sugar industry to profitability and is open to cooperation with the Indian Government and investors from India –the largest sugar producing country in the world.

“We need to develop our capacity to produce pure Demerara crystals… We already have trained labour, we need the technology and so we welcome Indian investors in the sugar industry… It is still a potentially lucrative area for investment,” the President was quoted as saying by the Ministry.

Mr. Singh is currently on a four-day visit to Guyana to meet with Government officials and explore areas of cooperation in an effort to deepen the 50 year-old Guyana-India ties.

Minister Singh expressed his appreciation of Guyana’s full support of India at all international forums including the International Solar Alliance (ISA), which recently held its founding conference in New Delhi, India. This forum was attended by President Granger.

The Indian Minister, the statement added, also expressed willingness to assist Guyana in its ‘green’ development agenda since that country has amassed considerable experience and have highly developed technologies in harnessing solar, hydro and wind power.

The Minister further spoke of the possibility of assisting Guyana to strengthen its security sector by offering training in the area of forensic science and training for police officers.