The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Raw sugar unloaded at Kakinada deep water port

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 08, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Raw sugar unloaded at Kakinada deep water port

Staff Reporter

Centre designates Kakinada as ‘regional distribution centre’
New berth at port catering to sugar and other traditional cargoes

Kakinada: A trial shipment of 25,000 tonnes of raw sugar imported from Brazil, was unloaded at Kakinada deep water port (Kakinada Seaports Limited - KSPL) in the early hours of January 3.

M/s Silkroad Sugars Private Limited (SRSPL), a joint venture sugar refining company of EID Parry (India) Limited of Murugappa Group and Cargill International S.A, which was the importer, has thus paved the way for development of a ‘food processing special economic zone’ here.

SRSPL which is coming up in the sector-specific SEZ, will be importing its entire requirement of raw sugar through KSPL over the coming years.

It is designed to process 6,00,000 tonnes of raw sugar per annum and export the refined sugar to foreign countries.

Besides, the fact that Union Government has recently designated Kakinada as a ‘regional distribution centre’ for sugar trade, augurs well for this region as a substantial part of sugar export-import trade in India would be done through this port city essentially through KSPL.

Sugar factories and also farmers are expected to benefit from this port-based sugar refinery, which is coming up in the close vicinity of Coromandel Fertilizers Limited (CFL).

The KSPL’s bulk cargo import list which currently comprises coal, food grains, fertilizers, machineries, steel plates, wood pulp, rock phosphate, feldspar chips and ball clay will have sugar added to it in huge quantities coming from Brazil, Indonesia and some other Southeast Asian and Middle East countries. Thanks to SRSL, more ships like YasaH Mehmet which brought raw sugar for it, are bound to make the sugar trade thrive here.

KSPL Chief Executive Officer Y.S. Prasad told The Hindu that the conferring of regional distribution centre (for sugar) status to Kakinada was of immense benefit to the KSPL as the former has become a hub for exports/imports of sugar.

KSPL has got a new south berth (its fourth one) dedicated for bulk cargo, which is now accommodating handymax vessels (ranging from 35,000 to 50,000 DWT).

The new berth is catering to sugar along with other traditional cargoes, which are bound to keep the port in good stead for a long time to come.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh

News Update

Stories in this Section