Nicaragua reports record sugar output

Nicaragua reaped a record sugar crop of 467,108 tonnes for the 2003/04 harvest, up 35.7 percent from the previous year, thanks to investments in productivity and healthy rains, sugar producers said on Wednesday.
More than 250,000 tonnes of sugar were exported from the harvest, which ran from last November until June 15.
Mario Amador, director general of the National Sugar Producers Committee, CNPA, said investments in recent years to boost productivity and upgrade refineries were paying off.
"It's the biggest sugar output in Nicaragua's history," Amador said, noting that Nicaraguan sugar producers had invested some $150 million over the past decade.
The previous record was 395,454 tonnes, produced in the 2000/01 harvest.
Nicaragua is the third-largest sugar producer in Central America after Guatemala and El Salvador.
Production has grown steadily in Nicaragua since the country's sugar industry was privatised in 1993.