HAVANA Cuba expects production of cane sugar, its most important export, to drop to under 4 million tons for the current harvest season following a long dry spell last year, government sources said Tuesday.

Sugar production for the 1999/2000 season was 4.06 million tons.

In the 1980s the southern Caribbean island country was producing more than eight million tons of sugar per year. But the breaking up of the former east bloc countries and the losses that breakup brought in fuel, replacement parts and fertilizer deliveries caused a drastic collapse in sugar production about a decade ago.

(DPA)