Vital sugar mill in Negros Oriental gains perks from BOI

The Board of Investments (BOI) has granted HDJ Bayawan Agri-venture Corp. (HBAC) incentives for its P490-million sugar mill in Negros Oriental.

In a recent statement, BOI said the project qualified under the 2017 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP) in the manufacturing activities agro-processing category. The IPP aims to attract investments in preferred business activities by enticing them with fiscal and non-fiscal perks such as a four-to-six year income tax holiday.

The sugar mill plant stands on a five-hectare area in Bayawan City, Negros Oriental.

The plant, which employs 151 workers, started commercial operations this month. It is expected to produce 427,050 50-kilogram bags of raw sugar annually and 7,665 metric tons per year of molasses, a by-product of raw sugar.

Trade Undersecretary and BOI Managing Head Ceferino Rodolfo said the new plant, being the first in many years, would address the needs of Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) beneficiaries and other small sugarcane farmers located within the plant’s 15-kilometer radius.

“The establishment of the new sugar mill plant will dramatically reduce the cost of transporting sugarcane among farmers within the area by as much as P600 per ton. Farmers will now have greater flexibility on where to send their sugarcanes for milling,” he said.

Previously, the nearest existing sugar mill sites were in Sta. Catalina, Bai City and Kabankalan City, both 50 kilometers away. The cost of transporting sugarcane to these sites is around P650 per ton.

Citing data from the Sugar Regulatory Administration and Philippine Statistics Authority, the BOI said the country’s sugar output reached 2.5 million metric tons as of August this year, the highest in four decades.