At some point GoK will have to throw this company and all those farmers in Western Kenya under the bus...growing sugar in Western Kenya is not viable...Kenya can not risk losing the COMESA market because of one inefficient sector...between there is KISCOL now...I cant wait for their sugar to hit the market..MSC is bound to loose market share for sure...!

1. Current deficit of 200K is currently being filled by COMESA imports.

2. When the COMESA safeguards/protections expire...COMESA countries can export sugar to Kenya ad lib...beyond the current 200K limit which means they can even bring in 700K tons if they want too. Good news for the consumer...Sugar is very expense in Kenya at the moment...COMESA countries can still make a kill even if they sale at half the price of the current retail prices in Kenya.

3. If you are an investor in this thing you better pray those safeguards are extended because if they're not...you are in trouble! More like tunaomba serikali itu saaidye... ...I hope my kiswahili is correct...I can bet there is 50% chance of those safe guards not being extended.

By the way what loopholes are you talking about?

KISCOL will survived...their farm is 90% irrigation...production costs are most likely more than half of Mumias.

Such Sugar is currently illegal because of the current safe guards..Egypt is part of COMESA.

Trade Disputes already developing.

Zambia justifies move to slap duty on Kenyan goods

According to him, the Kenyan authorities refused to allow Zambian sugar entry into that market because they believe Zambia does not manufacture sugar but was getting it from South Africa.

http://www.businessdaily...2/-/bmfroy/-/index.html

Offcourse MSC can change its biz model and probably survive by starting to import cheap sugar if they can get a supplier that means sacrificing the farmers in Western Kenya...will the politicians allow it?

Then the best thing would be for Kenya to evaluate on a country by country basis whoever is trying to bring in sugar.. what is the effect of Zambia's retaliation vis a vis stopping their sugar imports?
The Tanzanians we can ignore since they are not friendly to us anymore. hopefully Sudan and Egypt have too much trouble at home to mind this for now.

Yes it is Serikali Saidia time

C'mon boss...campaign funding. Eish..si huku ni Kenya? (before the political funding reforms)

You have got it. From there mumias will retur to its former glory. 300,000 acres already set aside for sugarcane, can mumias benefit from this.

Infact serikali already nasaidia sisi

Mr Koskei said the tractor project was one of the major plans to turnaround the sugar sector to allow maximum economic productivity.

"He said Kenya will work closely with Brazil to borrow tips for high sugar productivity. “Brazil is among the world leaders in the production of sugarcane, sugar, and ethanol. In addition, it is among the most efficient of all major sugar producers,” he said.

Brazil also exports sugar products."

plus 500m loan to mumias.

the signs are all there that GOk will not let our sugar industry die. The farmers going without work/productivity, employment rate is more of a concern to them than COMESA safeguards.

[quote=Cde Monomotapa]As we await our fate... EAC extends Rwanda waiver on imported sugar http://www.theeastafrica...2/-/6pn4v4/-/index.html[/quote]
Morals of the story are that extensions can be made with the bigger picture in mind (as @Aguy has described above), 2. That COMESA also has concerns about the bigger boys i.e Brazil who Kenya is now undertaking to learn from & 3. Rules of Origin are indeed a fundamental principle as shown in the article.

They are on a path of streamlning.. the Agric field dept. allready started in Dec.

and the Cabinet sec is going to negotiate extension at COMESA..


Sackings are also in the offing...

Sugar Board may weed out distributors to lower costs http://www.businessdailyafrica....2/-/in1aufz/-/index.html