Castro says sugar workers will not be harmed by restructuring of the industry - Fri Jun 14,11:06 AM ET - [Full Text] HAVANA - The current restructuring of Cuba's crucial sugar industry will not harm workers who have long labored in the cane fields and mills, Fidel Castro says. "All workers in the sugar industry are going to be much better off," Castro said during an extensive talk Thursday night on state television.
In "the sugar sector, right now, we are in a program of restructuring," said Castro. "This has brought some worries ... but more than anything it is nostalgia" among workers. Castro's statements comprised the first official declaration on the restructuring, marked by closure of some of Cuba's 154 sugar mills islandwide. Depressed international sugar prices made the move necessary, he said.
At the beginning of the 2001-2002 sugar harvest that just ended, the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina said only about 100 of Cuba's sugar mills were working. To modernize the island's old mills, many dating back more than a century, would cost 4 million dollars to 5 million dollars each, Prensa Latina said then.
Castro on Thursday offered no specifics about the revamping of the industry, which employs about 400,000 people. But he said many sugar workers are upset they have to leave jobs they were familiar with. "They feel nostalgic and that's logical, the love they feel for their workplace," Castro said. But they will be given new work, "and they will not suffer the slightest sacrifice," he said.
Government officials have projected that sugar will generate 120 million dollars less this year because of low world prices. Sugar brings in an average of 500 million dollars annually. Cuba's revamping of its sugar industry comes amid a government cash crunch following a drop in tourism and other key sources of hard currency. Sugar is Cuba's No. 1 export crop and an important source of cash needed to buy petroleum, food and other crucial imports. [End]
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