20/06/12

Swiss agribusiness company Syngenta has opened a $100m sugarcane processing plant in Brazil. The sugar produced at the plant will be exported to China.

Syngenta sugarcane business director Daniel Bachner said that China's increasing demand for sugar is one of the drivers of the company's investments in innovative sugarcane planting technologies.

The plant, which is located in Itapolis in Brazil's Sao Paulo state, features a new technology which is expected to increase sugarcane production by 10% to 15% per hectare.

The company expects the annual sales of this new technology after 2015 to reach $500m in Brazil and plans to launch it into China in the next two years, reported China Daily.

China has become a major sugar importer in recent years due to the growing population and rapid industrialization.

China's sugar imports soared 2.4 times year-on-year in the first four months of 2012 to 810,000 tons, according to the General Administration of Customs.