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Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha is shown around the new Capri fridge manufacturing factory by Capri managing director Mr Gary Watson

Conrad Mwanawashe Business Reporter
PRODUCTION at Innscor Africa’s appliance manufacturing division, Capri, will treble to 18 000 units from 4 500 per month for fridges and chest freezers following the commissioning of a new $12 million factory.

The new technology pushes Capri’s capacity utilisation to 100 percent at an output of 500 fridges daily. The introduction of cheaper and more efficient ways of producing top-end products is expected to knock down the prices of fridges, according to Capri marketing manager Mr Antonio Simoes.

The first line of production from the new factory is expected early July.

“We see a big scope for us to grow both locally and regionally. We are currently in Zambia and Malawi, we are in talks with Botswana, DRC and we should be in Mozambique in July,” said Mr Simoes.

At present Capri is on an export to local sales ratio of 60 percent to 40 percent.

Officially commissioning the new factory yesterday, Minister of Industry and Commerce Mike Bimha said the investment by Innscor comes at an opportune time when Government has introduced a number of measures to nurture and develop industry to enable it to withstand unfair competition regionally and globally.

“The raft of these measures include inter alia, adjustments in tariffs and removal of electronic products from duty rebate, refrigerators included,” said Minister Bimha.

“I am pleased that capacity utilisation at Capri stands at 100 percent. This investment in new technology is expected to increase production levels from 5 000 units to 18 000 units per month. About 20-30 percent of production is expected to be consumed by the domestic market while 70-80 percent is earmarked for the export market,” he said.

Capri managing director Mr Gary Watson said the company is positioning itself to compete internationally while dominating the local market.

“If you can compete in the export market I can’t see why we can’t be a dominant factor locally,” said Mr Watson.

Minister Bimha said the new equipment will entail a complete redesign of refrigerators to be at par with international standards.

“This would enable Capri to export quality products to the whole of the SADC region and beyond,” said Minister Bimha.

The new fridge making technology replaces the old outside the fridge condenser with a skin condenser which uses a smaller compressor.

This introduces direct cooling and at lower energy consumption. Capri says this makes the fridge making business at least 30 percent better on energy rating, 30 percent better on carbon footprint.