By Munyaradzi Musiiwa
Gweru-based cement manufacturing company, Sino Zimbabwe Cement Company, is in the process of setting up an industrial park and has applied for 1 600 hectares of land to fully operationalise the project.
Speaking during a tour of the brick manufacturing plant commissioned on Monday, Sino Cement managing director, Mr Wang Yong, said plans were underway to set up an industrial park.
He said the cement company was set to expand and increase production capacity following the whole chain of production from mining to distribution.
However, Mr Yong said the company required an additional 1 600ha to fully implement the project.
“We want to construct a Sino Zimbabwe Industrial Park. We want to use the current foundation that we have, which is Sino Zimbabwe Cement Company. We are following the cement process line from the quarry to the end.
“This means from quarry, cement, bricks and to tiles or even logistics. We will use this building material as a foundation to this industrial park,” he said.
“At the moment we are utilising 247 hectares at the cement manufacturing plant. We want to fully utilise the land and that is what we will start with. We want to apply for Indiva farm. The total land would be 1 661 hectares to build our Sino Zimbabwe Industrial Park.”
Mr Yong said the commissioned brick manufacturing plant meets world standards and environmentally sustainable methods of acquiring raw material.
“We use shell for the manufacturing of bricks coming from the mining site. Most brick factories in Zimbabwe use clay from agriculture land. Then we have the application of the latest technology in the manufacturing of bricks. This is the latest technology, which is being used in the world in the manufacturing of bricks with minimal manual holding from the feeding of the raw material to the finished product,” he said.
Mr Yong said the brick manufacturing plant would contribute towards the reduction of the country’s import bill as it produces face bricks that are being imported from South Africa.
“Our product is of high quality. Through the modern process line, we are able to produce that high quality product that includes commercial, standard, industrial and face bricks.
‘Those bricks will meet the domestic demand of face bricks that is currently being imported and it will also reduce the country’s import bill and preserve foreign currency,” he said.
The Chinese investor has injected US$60 million into the Sino Zimbabwe Cement project since its inception. The company has a production capacity of 300 000 tonnes of cement annually. It has a staff complement of 400. The Chronicle
