Illovo will be able to create more than 1 000 jobs in the sugarcane industry thanks to financial support by the South African government.

Illovo, one of South Africa’s biggest sugar companies, is aggressively working towards meeting, and exceeding, its targets for black economic empowerment. To this end, the country’s National Treasury’s Jobs Fund has given the green light for an Illovo-project that could create as many as 1 200 jobs and provide training for 1 630 people.

The Jobs Fund has funded 50% of the required capital for the project, with Illovo providing 15% and a beneficiary loan making up the remaining 35%. This loan is underwritten by Illovo, who will also cover all of the project’s management and implementation costs.

The company, in partnership with traditional councils, intends to create sustainable employment for small producers and their families on 3 000 ha of small-scale sugarcane-producing farms on KwaZulu-Natal’s south coast. The aim is to stimulate far-flung rural areas’ economies, as well as to stabilise rural households’ incomes.

“Illovo has demonstrated its active support of the South African government’s social and economic development agenda by selling more than 55% of the company’s land to black people, simultaneously establishing 50 black commercial sugarcane producers. In addition, broad support and services have been supplied to land reform and small-scale producers, which has contributed to the improvement of rural communities’ standards of living,” says the company in a media statement.

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