Santo Domingo.- The State Council Sugar (CEA) yesterday leased 18,900 hectares (300,000 tareas) of the shuttered sugar mills Consuelo and Quisqueya to the group Vicini- Campollo for US$2.4 million annually.

CEA director Juan Francisco Matos said the group plans to invest nearly US$150 million during the contract period of 30 years. “This agreement reactivates production in those lands and invigorates the Eastern zone’s economy in a sustainable manner. We understand that the partnership’s investment will generate between 5,000 and 6,000 direct jobs.”

Matos and group representatives Virgilio Perez Bernard, Rafael Vélez and Ricardo Campollo signed the contract with an immediate first disbursement of US$2.4 million.

Vélez said the lands leased will produce sugar cane, plants to generate biomass and other crops which technicians will choose according to the different types of soils.

He said the variety of crops will guarantee a permanent manpower in the zone in all seasons and that the biomass extracted from cane bagasse and other plants will generate clean energy within four years.

The Consuelo and Quisqueya mills were shuttered more than five years ago during which families of squatters have settled in some of their lands.

Perez Bernard said the project will recover all of the lands that were idle in the East. “The project will take development to the entire region.”