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Livetouch Cement manufacturing plant in Redcliff near Kwekwe.

Patrick Chitumba, Midlands Bureau Chief
THE newly constructed Livetouch Cement manufacturing plant in Redcliff, near Kwekwe, has recruited about 100 workers since commencement of operations two months ago.

Chief executive officer, Mr Wang Dongning, said yesterday that while production has started, it was on a low scale as he revealed that the company was producing cement on the basis of orders due to suppressed demand.

“We have started producing cement at this plant but production is demand based. This is because we are still testing the market but we are glad to note that we have attracted some big clients, among them construction companies as well as building materials supply companies,” said Mr Wang in an interview at the plant.

He said so far the company has hired about 100 people but hoped the number could be increased in tandem with improvement in output and business growth. Earlier, management had hinted that about 200 people will be employed when the plant starts running at full capacity with the number of jobs expected to double under phase 2.

Phase 2 of the projects is planned to be much bigger than the initial investment and should get underway soon after deposits are secured.

The new plant was constructed at a cost of $10 million by Chinese firm Mortal Investments Manufacturing and trades as Livetouch Cement.

“The plant manufactures masonry cement and has a capacity to produce 400 000 tonnes of cement annually. So we wait to see how the economy performs. But we aim to produce the (full capacity) 400 000 tonnes of cement in the next year or so.

“We are confident that after the successful 2016-17 agriculture season farmers downstream industries will have more money to spend on construction and we are optimistic of getting more orders,” said Mr Wang.

Livetouch becomes the second cement manufacturer to set up shop in the Midlands province after Gweru-based SinoZim. The company acquired 100 000 square metres from the local authority at a cost of $600 000 to build the plant. Redcliff Mayor Councillor Fred Kapuya said the future for his town and country at large was bright as more companies were expressing interest in investing in the mining town.

Livetouch Investments also has to compete for the market with forerunners PPC Zimbabwe and Lafarge Zimbabwe. Already PPC, which produced from Bulawayo and Gwanda, has doubled its production capacity to 1,4 million tonnes after recently commissioning a new plant in Harare, its third in Zimbabwe. Lafarge has a 450 000t plant in Harare while Sino-Zimbabwe’s plant in Gweru can produce about 250 000t per year.

The new cement firm has brought a refreshing feel to the deathly silence and faltering industrial face of Redcliff since the collapse of Zisco Steel in 2008. On average Zimbabwe consumes about 1,14 million tonnes of cement per year and producers have to secure export markets in the region for the excess production.

@pchitumba1