Kenya will open a new sugar factory in 2006 at a cost of $300 million with the backing of a Swiss bank to mill a fast-growing cane variety, investors and officials said on Wednesday.
Kenya's state-run Tana and Athi River Development Authority (TARDA) and MAT International signed a partnership agreement to build the Tana Delta Sugar Company in Garsen, 320 km south-east of Nairobi, using finance through a consortium led by Switzerland's UBS bank.
Kenya's sugar factories are located in the west of the country.
"Under this agreement between MAT International and TARDA we are providing total financial requirement as per the estimated cost of processing the plant," Abdiwahab Haji Yerrow, chairman of MAT, told reporters.
MAT will hold a 70 percent stake and TARDA the remaining 30 percent.
Kenya produced 516,800 tonnes of sugar in 2004 compared with 448,500 in 2003. It imported 164,000 tonnes last year, compared with 182,200 the previous year.
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