Construction work on a cement factory owned by Chinese capital located in the district of Chinbunila, in Niassa province, will resume this month. The venture, which had been paralysed for three years due to the negative impacts of covid-19, is valued at US$20 million.
Silvano Bonomar, head of the department of Mineral Resources and Energy of the Provincial Directorate of Infrastructure, justified the delay in the works with the absence of some of the technical experts of Chinese nationality who had returned to their country because of the pandemic.
According to Bonomar, the managers of the project also reported financial difficulties to the provincial government, which required restructuring the funding and shareholder structure.
Bonomar also told Noticias that the Chinese company had given assurances that the process of restructuring investment and the shareholder structure had been concluded and that work on the project, which when operational, will provide about 500 jobs, mainly for local youths, would resume at the end of the month.
“The physical execution level of the construction of the new cement factory, which is vital for boosting the country’s construction industry and socio-economic development, is around 90 percent and its conclusion may happen next December,” he said.
The inauguration of the project, which will have production capacity of around 200,000 tons of Portland cement per year, is scheduled for the first quarter of next year, when it will be operating in its experimental phase.
The source noted that the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation had issued a favourable opinion to the request from the Niassa government authorities for authorisation for a dozen Chinese specialists to come to Portugal to deal with technical issues related to the project.
Meanwhile, a large part of the raw material for the manufacture of Portland cement, namely limestone, clay and mineral coal, will be extracted locally, that is, from deposits located in the districts of Lago and Sanga.
The construction cement sold in Niassa at a price of 600 meticais a 50-kilogram bag is produced in factories located in Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces. The price, considered high, is the main barrier to boosting the construction industry in Niassa, according to local government authorities.
