Fiji’s four sugar mills are seeing better quality cane after the implementation of a new yield based payment system.

Fiji Sugar Corporation executive chairman Abdul Khan said they are running the new system in parallel with the normal cane payment system.

The new payment system will be in place by next year.

Khan said they had seen a change in the cane quality coming to the mills.

He said better yields mean quality sugar. This is important because with the preferential agreement with the European Union coming to an end in 2017, Fiji’s sugar will be in the global markets competing with other sugar producing nations.

He said they are still negotiating with the EU to keep the preferential agreement to 2020 or even beyond.

Reginald Chandar