The ninth wealthiest businessman in Africa, Issad Rebrab, founder Chairman, Cevital Food Processing Industry will invest in Sri Lanka on a sugar refinery and a vegetable oil plant in the Southern Province.
In an exclusive interview with Daily News Business in Colombo yesterday he said that if all approvals are given Sri Lanka could taste its first sugar in 24 months from now.
“I have already found a local partner and he has identified a 100 acre land for the project.”
 Issad Rebrab in Colombo |
He said that it was the Sri Lankan investor who first told him about Sri Lanka and its pluses and minuses. “I saw that Sri Lanka spends millions to import sugar when the country could not only be self sufficient but an exporter to the world.”
Rebrab said Cevital will invest 150 million Euros to build the sugar refinery and also a power plant. “In addition a further 45 million Euro will be invested to manufacture vegetable oil.”
Rebrab, has been named the wealthiest man in North Africa by the Forbes 2015 rankings. He is the only billionaire in his country and has estimated assets of US$ 3.2 billion. He gained 28 positions in the previous year and is now the 549th richest person in the world, and one of the ten wealthiest Africans.
The Cevital owner has diversified his investments from the food industry to appliances, cars and iron metallurgy. Algerian media say that the group is also preparing to enter the telecommunications sector.
He said that he was happy to do business in Sri Lanka as the investment climate is very good and the country has tremendous potential. “I want my businesses to help Sri Lanka be a game changer by turning around from being a sugar and vegetable oil importer to one of the largest exporters of both to the world.”
He said their sugar refinery will be environmental friendly to international standards, self sufficient in power. “We will produce power from sugar cane waste and the extra power will be fed to the national grid.”
He also said that they will first purchase sugar cane from local farmers and will also grow sugar cane and also maize.
Rebrab’s is the world’s largest sugar refiner. His plant in Algeria has a capacity of 2.7 million tonnes per annum which is the world’s largest ever sugar refining facilities. Prior to his entry into the sugar industry, Algeria was a sugar importing country and Rebrab changed that within a very short span of time and made Algeria a sugar exporting country. His intention is to rewrite the same success story in Sri Lanka given the right investment climate which he firmly believes there is.
Sri Lanka consumes nearly a million tonnes of sugar but produces only 80,000 tonnes.There is a severe drain of foreign exchange and price fluctuation due to the dominance of imports in the sugar industry. The entry of Cevital will be a great solution for Sri Lanka which not only will save foreign exchange but will also trigger large scale FDI, employment generation and also export earnings in the coming years.
“We are not keen to manufacture Ethanol.”He also said that they will import sugar until such time they have enough raw materials to make Sri Lanka self sufficient and have an excess for exports. “Our target is to manufacture 1.2 million tons per annum and we will definitely buy over 50% our sugarcane from farmers as we need to support them as well.”
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