PG Industries Zimbabwe Ltd is set to commission a new automated roof tile making plant in Harare at a cost of $2,5 million with a capacity of producing up to 40 000 tiles per single shift. The new plant is expected to start operating in November.
Speaking after a tour of the ZimTile plant on Tuesday, managing director Washington Kuwana said the new automated tile plant would replace the ageing plant that had been in operation for over five decades. The old plant had a production capacity of 13 500 tiles per shift.
“Definitely in the fourth quarter the new plant should be up and running,” said Kuwana. “We are very excited and very confident that this investment is going to do a lot of good to PG Industries,” he added.
The ZimTile boss said the new plant will produce a wide range of profiles to suit different customer needs. Previously, the company was producing three profile types, the double roman, mendip and Tuscan.
“We could not get spares for the old machine. Repairing was very costly and the old machine was a diesel boiler which is very expensive to operate,” said Kuwana.
Kuwana said civil works for the new plant had reached an advanced stage and were almost 90% complete.
He said the new machinery would be in the country within the next three weeks from South Africa.
PG group finance manager Adam Zvandasara said continuing with the old machinery had proved to be unviable given the high unit costs of production and was making the company’s tiles uncompetitive.
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“This investment is a vote of confidence in the construction industry in Zimbabwe which we believe will turn around,” said Zvandasara. “The aim is to produce affordable products, that everyone will be able to access,” he added.
