DESPITE being badly hit by two floods last year, the Rarawai sugar mill in Ba performed reasonably well, according to the Fiji Sugar Corporation.
FSC executive chairman Abdul Khan said significant improvements in terms of mill performance had to be acknowledged and credit given to the outstanding efforts of mill staff and management despite the huge challenges caused by inclement weather.
"We feel that considering all the unfortunate effects of the flooding on Rarawai, it performed reasonably well.
"As per the other mills, Rarawai also improved on last year and continued the improvement trend over the last two years since I took over," said Mr Khan.
"In terms of tonnes cane to tonnes sugar (TCTS), we improved from 14 in 2010 to 11.4 in 2011 to 10.4 for the season just gone."
He said Ba mill processed 465,320 tonnes of cane and produced 44,750 tonnes of sugar for the 2012 season. "Our expectation is to ship a further 30,000 tonnes of raw sugar by late January 2013 to the UK," he said.
He revealed FSC had imported sugar to meet local consumption and because of competitive pricing had managed to pass savings onto consumers.
"We imported 27,500 tonnes of sugar to see us through coming months at a price cheaper than what we're able to export our sugar."