 STRATEGY |
| INTERVIEW OF
MR CYRIL MAYER, PRESIDENT OF HAREL GROUP |
Q. The Company Harel Freres was founded, 160 years ago, could you give to our readers a
brief historical background of the company as well as your own professional experience?
A. The Harel Freres Company was founded in 1838, it was incorporated as a company
in June 1960,and it belonged to the Harel family originally, today we are even quoted on
the stock exchange. Our main activity used to be the plantation of sugar cane; we employ
some 2,700 people and cultivating about 3,900 hectares of sugar cane land in the northern
part of the island. We produce on average 85,000 tons of sugar per year, which represents
about 15% of the local production of sugar. Over the years in the country, the Group has
developed and today the Group is a fairly diversified group with various investment
activities in banking, insurance and buildings. There is a sister company of Harel Freres,
Harel Mallac Co. Ltd is a commercial company, which holds the franchise of IBM and Rank
Xerox –it is one of the biggest trading companies in Mauritius. Personally, I am
chartered accountant, I studied in South Africa, and I joined the company in 1985 and was
elected chairman of the company six years ago.
Q. You are one of the most advanced and modern sugar groups on the island, what have
been the investments you have made to increase the quality and the productivity of the
land?
A. Given the fact that the northern part of the island is dry and it is constantly
subject to drought, survival for us has been constantly more difficult than the rest of
the industry. On the field side we have started derocking our fields some 20 years back in
order to prepare our fields for mechanisation. Our fields are today mechanised up to 70 to
75%; our goal is to fully mechanise all our fields by the year 2000. |
On the milling side we
basically stated with the operation of four factories, all of a small size –we
gradually concentrated our operations with the closure of our factory Solitude in 1985 and
The Mount in 1995 respectively. We are today left with two factories and soon this will be
reduced to one and this will enable us to have a capacity of producing some 100,000/ tons
of sugar. We have one of the most modern factories in Mauritius, fully automated.
Q.You are the largest producer of special sugar, could you elaborate more on that?
We were in the 70’s the tinniest producers of the island, with this process of
refining sugar we have now seven different types of sugar and we manufacture about 45,000
tons of refine sugar which are destined to exportation.
Q. Concerning the coal and bagasse thermal plant project that you have the intention of
launching, could tell us more about this investment?
A.This project is our latest baby, we intend to invest jointly with Beau Plan and
the Mount in a coal and bagasse thermal plant of 70MW which is projected to start its
operation in year 2000 at Belle Vue. The power station will be operating on bagasse during
the crop season and using coal after the crop season. This project is a 100 million dollar
project and it is a project that is being undertaken first time in Mauritius. |
