• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 08 / 25 / 2010

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CIEGO DE AVILA, CUBA.- Financed by the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America, a top-notch cattle and pig-slaughter technology was set off in the Unidad Empresarial de Base (UEB) located in Ciego de Avila’s municipality of Moron to central-northern region of Cuba.

The project is one of Cuba’s efforts aimed at boosting national food production and substituting imports.

The new technology valued at 4.9 million pesos will help the factory’s production to increase from 50 to 150 slaughtered cattle and in the case of hogs, from 100 to 400.

The director of Ciego de Avila’s meat-processing enterprise, Rolando Duarte Perez said the increase of the centre’s slaughter capacity will contribute to the saving of fuel since before the center could not take all of the animals produced in the area so large numbers of hogs and cattle heads used to be sent to neighboring province Camaguey.

Moron-based UEB’s director Enrique Zorrilla Silva added that the technology will allow the country to reduce spending in the import of mechanically boned ground chicken quoted at around US$800 per ton.

Ciego de Avila’s meat production plan is performing at 28.5 percent, similar to the national rate, while there has been an increase in the quality of ground meat, mortadella, sausages, croquettes, among other food items produced in the area, according to Zorrilla Silva.

On a second stage of the project, due to be completed by 2011, includes the inauguration of a meat processing plant with 11 cold stores in Moron’s unit.

In a recent visit to the province, Food and Fishing Industry minister Maria del Carmen Concepción Gonzalez said that one of the medium-term goals of the country is to produce international-competitive meat products and to cover the national demand.

Source: Radio Rebelde