In an interview with IRNA on Sunday, Abd Ali Naseri added: “The refining of raw sugar produced by this company, which reached an unprecedented 618,261 tons in the 2020-2021 crop year, will continue until early October this year.”
He stated: “In addition to refining the raw sugar produced by this company, 90,000 tons of imported yellow sugar will be refined and turned into white sugar according to the contract between the parent company of Iran State Trading Company and Sugarcane & By-Products Development Co.”
He specified: “After the end of the refining operation of raw sugar in this company, the sugarcane harvest will start in the fields of this company.”
Naseri announced the goal of producing 700,000 tons of raw sugar in this company in the 2021-2022 crop year and reaching the nominal capacity of the seven sugarcane units affiliated with this company.
According to IRNA, the executive operations of the seven sugarcane units of Khuzestan on an area of 84,000 hectares in the south and north of Ahvaz started in the 1990s and have been put into operation one after another since the beginning of 2000.
The seven sugarcane units of Salman Farsi, Hakim Farabi, Imam Khomeini (RA), Dehkhoda, Amirkabir, Mirzakoochak Khan and Debal Khazaei alone supply about 40% of the country’s sugar.
Haft Tappeh and Karoun sugarcane units are other independent sugar production units in Khuzestan.
The country’s annual need for sugar is 2.2 million tons, of which 1.5 million tons is produced domestically and about 700,000 tons of raw sugar is imported from abroad, which a part of the imported raw (yellow) sugar is turned into white sugar in Sugarcane & By-Products Development Company.
According to the Vision plan for 2025, about 70% of the country’s sugar production in Khuzestan will be provided by the production of two strategic products, sugarcane and sugar beets.