SANTO DOMINGO – The Dominican Republic’s iconic sugar sector, a cornerstone of the national economy for generations, has achieved a remarkable technological transformation over the last half-decade that is reshaping its operational model permanently. Five years ago, mechanized harvesting of sugarcane accounted for just 1 percent of all harvest activity across the country. Today, that figure has surged to 70 percent, delivering major gains in overall productivity and drastically cutting the industry’s long-standing reliance on foreign migrant labor.
This landmark progress was the central topic of a high-level working meeting held at the Dominican Republic’s National Palace, where President Luis Abinader held discussions with top executives from the nation’s largest and most influential sugar processing mills. The gathering focused on reviewing the industry’s current performance trajectory and reinforcing its strategic contribution to the country’s broader economic growth agenda.
Senior leadership from three of the nation’s leading sugar producers – Central Romana, Ingenio CAEI, and Ingenio Barahona – were in attendance at the meeting, joined by Eduardo Sanz Lovatón, the Dominican Minister of Industry, Commerce and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
Official statements released following the meeting confirm that the widespread adoption of mechanized harvesting systems has streamlined operational workflows and lifted efficiency across the entire supply chain. Most notably, the shift to automated cutting has eliminated the need for thousands of foreign workers who previously filled labor-intensive manual harvesting roles. Both government officials and industry stakeholders stressed that ongoing investment in modernization infrastructure is steadily strengthening the long-term competitiveness and environmental sustainability of the sugar sector, one of the Dominican Republic’s most critical productive industries.