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Golden Sibanda Senior Business Reporter
Cement manufacturer Sino-Zimbabwe will start producing tiles and bricks within the next 12 months, as part of the firm’s $20 million diversification project.

Joint venture partner, Industrial Development Corporation, said site preparations for the project are underway following a recent ground breaking event.

A further $50 million will be invested in the project, but this will depend on the rate of progress and success registered in the initial phase of the project.

IDC general manager Mr Mike Ndudzo said in an interview this week that once production starts, the firm will produce for both local and export markets.

He said the diversification will allow Sino-Zim to exploit synergies with other companies that fall under the State-owned enterprise expansive empire.

The firm is diversifying into brick and roof-tile making in a three-phase project. The first phase is expected to come on line in the first quarter of 2016.

The first phase will entail construction of a brick-making plant with capacity of 60 million units annually. The project will create 200 jobs to add to the 400 it employs.

“The project will use raw material from other operations in the group. When we mine limestone (in Dorowa) overburden will be used as raw material,” he said.

“Effluent from one operation is actually raw material in another,” he added.

The $20 million investment comes after Sino-Zimbabwe invested $5 million towards upgrading of the plant at its Gweru-based cement manufacturing factory.

The refurbishment of the cement manufacturing operation enabled the company to increase its production capacity to 1 200 tonnes from 700t per day.

Managing director Mr Wang Yong said in a recent Press interview that the company is operating at 90 percent capacity and looking to ramp up production.

Sino-Zimbabwe Cement Company was borne out of a joint business venture between a Chinese foreign direct investment partner, China Building Material Industrial Corporation for Foreign Econo-Technical Co-operation (CBMC) and the Industrial Development Corporation of Zimbabwe Limited (IDC) .

CBMC contributed 65 percent of the $52 million capital at inception in 2002 in the form of modern technology and expertise. IDC provided land, civil works and an educated, skilled manpower, coupled with management’s intimate knowledge of the local conditions.

Mr Ndudzo said the Sino-Zimbabwe project was one of the most established joint ventures, successful and commercially run partnerships it has participated in.

The company is Zimbabwe’s third largest producer of cement after PPC Zimbabwe, which operates from Bulawayo and Lafarge Zimbabwe in Harare.