KINGSTON - Jamaica completed the sale of its three largest State-owned sugar factories to a China-based company in a deal worth $9 million, the Jamaican government said on Monday, according to a Reuters report.

China National Complete Plant Import & Export Co Ltd, known as Complant, takes over the Frome, Monymusk and Bernard Lodge factories on Tuesday, Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding said at a signing ceremony.

The sale was first announced last year.

The factories have run up losses for more than three decades and the government sought to sell them as it struggles to tame a budget deficit.

According to the government agency Sugar Industry Authority, Jamaica will produce 140,000 tons of sugar this year, up from 121,806 tons in 2010.

In 2009, Jamaica sold two other state-owned factories to private, local buyers.

Lyn Yuting, Complant's operations manager, said the factories would be run under the name Pan Caribbean Sugar Company Ltd.