2011/12 SSA ISSUES FIRST ANNUAL INTEGRATED REPORT

In the past, Swaziland Sugar Association (SSA) Annual Reports covered the key elements of sales performance, management commentary, financial performance, outlook and governance. Council has decided that these key elements should now be reported in a holistic and integrated manner with the objective of enabling stakeholders to appreciate the key determinants of SSA’s performance as well as the factors which have a material impact on the sustainability of the industry into the longer term.

The analytical section of the Integrated Report is found here. The abridged financials are here while the detailed financial statements are found here. A Flash version of the full Integrated Report (with abridged financial statements) can be found here.

Despite the increase in area harvested, the cane harvested declined by 45 850 tons (thus continuing the declining trend experienced in the past three years). Cane yield also declined from 97.2 tons per ha in the previous year to 95,9 tons per ha. At the same time, sucrose content fell slightly from 14,3% to 13,9%; with the sugar recovered from cane also falling slightly from 12,3% to 12,0%. A combination of all these resulted in a drop of sucrose production by 3,8% to 675 909 tons, whilst sugar production dropped by 3,9% to 582 019 tons (the lowest level in the past nine years). Thus, the year under review has not been a good one for the sugar industry in as far as production is concerned.

SSA gross revenues increased from E2,6 billion to E2,8 billion (representing an increase of 7,7%) due to increased sugar and molasses sales revenues, which increased by E137 million (5,3%) and E14 million (24,6%) respectively. However, due to a significant drawdown on closing stocks to meet sales commitments, owing to the considerable reduction in production, there was a downward adjustment in the value of stocks (by E219 million). As a result, the net proceeds from sugar and molasses sales reduced from E2,1 billion to E2,0 billion.