Cuba expects to meet domestic sugar demand in 2009 for the first time after a major restructuring six years ago of a once-critical industry, a senior ministry official said Wednesday.

Sugar Vice Minister Juan Godefoy said the sugar harvest that ended earlier this year yielded 28 per cent more than the harvest in 2007, which government statistics reported as 1.2 million metric tonnes (1.32 million tons).

This year's harvest

That would put this year's harvest at around 1.5 million tonnes (1.65 million tons).

Godefoy told a news conference that "we will satisfy national needs" for the crop, while continuing to develop existing and new sugar cane derivatives.

Cuba produces about 80 deri-vatives from sugar cane, including building materials and alcohol for beverages and medicine.

Faced with falling harvests and inefficient and ageing sugar mills, Cuba began restructuring the industry in 2002 by shutting down more than half of its production centres.

Sugar was once Cuba's key export crop, with yields of up to eight million tonnes (nine million tons) during the 1980s.

Since restructuring, two-thirds of the land once dedicated to sugar cane is now used to grow other food crops, to graze cattle or as forest land, said sugar ministry official Liobel Perez.