Sugar indecision means bankruptcy
Despite being on the very brink of bankruptcy with unpaid debts piling up by the day and despite the German Pfeifer und Langen waiting in the wings to breath new life into the sector, those nationalist MPs supporting the creation of the Polski Cukier sugar concern have effectively blocked the transfer of ownership into foreign hands of the refineries in the Kalisz and Konin regions of central Poland. On Thursday the cabinet is again to discuss the issue of the formation of Polski Cukier. Privatisation advisors are suggesting that the best solution would be to link 25 refineries in it. They also say, without using the words beyond hope, that if the refineries in the Kalisz and Konin regions are added to it then the whole thing could collapse. Yesterday Stanislaw Stec, who is deputy head of the parliamentary finance committee, said that the refineries at Witaszyce and Gniezno would not be part of Polski Cukier owing to the bad financial situation in which they find themselves. If the laws of the real world applied then the refineries in the Kalisz and Konin region would have been bankrupt long ago. Their life support system is the agreements with the workers and sugar beet farmers. Five facilities have PLN240m in debts and the Gniezno and Witaszyce refineries have deals with their banks only in the hope that a foreign company will bail them out. On their own they have no hope ever of paying off this debt. Janusz Pierun who represents the German Pfeifer und Langen says that the refineries in the area need around PLN700m in investments to keep them afloat.