Industrial district of Ponta Grossa will receive an investment of R$ 15 million

From March 2008 on, the industrial district of Ponta Grossa will receive one more project. The ethanol mill, ration and flour factory will be constructed in the area donated by an investing group. The donation was done officially yesterday. The raw-material will be the sweet-potato and it will come from the region. The project will need resources of almost R$15 million. According to the owner of the Bioex Ethanol, Jose Sebastião Fagundes Cunha, the mill will have capacity to produce 50 thousand liters of alcohol per day. For this, it will be necessary about 180 thousand tons of sweet-potato a year. The expectation is that 100% of this ethanol production will be exported to Japan. For the investor, this project will be viable because the sweet-potato residue will be used for the animal feeding production for cattle, sheep, goat, pig and fish. The flour production will use the sweet-potato itself, and also flour, pasta, bread, cake, among other products, that will be distributed between the involved families of agricultural producers in the plantation of this raw material. China, as Cunha says, produces about 150 million tons of sweet-potato flour annually. Cunha also says that the project will benefit the familiar agriculture. “The sweet-potato will be bought in a ray of up to 70 kilometers of distance of Ponta Grossa”, he says. The idea is that the plantation will involve approximately 300 families of country producers of the Campos Gerais region. Other jobs will be generated in the mill, factory and flour production. Cunha also remembers that the sweet-potato culture has been studied at Cescage. The work, that led to the discovery of the product as an income-producing option and its use in the human consumption and in the animal feeding and as a source of energy by the ethanol production was done with the Federal University of Tocantins partnership. The construction of the industrial district depends on, now, of the environmental licenses from the Instituto Ambiental do Paraná (IAP). The previous license was required this week. The area donation was approved yesterday afternoon by the Chamber of the town councilors. The land is located next to the Beaulieu. “It is a very good area for us because of the railway line that passes around”, he observes. Areas Others two areas in the industrial district had been also approved for donation from the Luztell Electrical Installation company and Alltimber Wood Industry. The Lutzell’s company is located nowadays at Liane’s district and it intends to construct a new unit area with approximately 20 thousand square meters. The investment will be next to R$ 600 thousand. According to Paulo Roberto dos Santos, partner-administrator of the Luztell’s company, only the production of concrete device will be transferred to the district. The company operates with electric installation and with standard pole and high-voltage pole for the Copel company. Moreover, it keeps the line of pre-molded products. They are 70 direct jobs. “We are going to increase our production and consequently the number of employers are going to increase too when we move to the industrial district”, assures Paulo. The forecast is to initiate the district construction in the next February. The company is also managed by Ari de Andrade.