TANZANIA – Said Salim Bakhresa Ltd, the flag-ship company of the Bakhresa Group, has announced that the first phase of the US$300 million Bagamoyo Sugar Limited is nearing completion and will officially start production by June 2022.
According to the group’s Corporate Affairs Director Hussein Sufian, the company has pumped in about US$100 million in constructing the first phase of the project.
The project, which has three phases, is expected to commence with an installed processing capacity of between 30,000 tonnes and 35,000 tonnes.
For the three phases, the annual processing capacity will be expanded to 100,000 tonnes.
“We are putting the finishing touches to the civil works. We have just started installation of the machines and are optimistic that the plant will be ready by December this year, or January next year at the latest,” Mr Sufian said.
From there on, he said, they would start trial production of sugar before embarking on commercial production in June.
Bagamoyo Sugar Ltd is significant to job creation and will in future have a multiplier effect on farmers.
The first phase of the factory will create between 800 and 1,000 direct jobs, reports Citizen Tanzania.
Bakhresa noted that the sugar factor will first be fed by its 2,000 hectares of sugarcane and in the future, they will engage out-grower farmers.
Tanzania targets to be self-sufficient in sugar production by 2025
The decision to establish Bagamoyo Sugar Ltd came after the late President John Magufuli allocated 10,000 hectares of land to the business tycoon and owner of Bakhresa group, Mr Said Salim Bakhresa, to establish a sugar plant.
The investment is in line with the country’s policy to achieve self-sufficiency by 2025 to reach 700,000 tons from the current 368,000 tons, against the demand of 635,000 tonnes.
Further boosting sugar production in the East African country, Illovo Sugar Africa, a Pan-African consumer centric agri-business with roots in growing and making sugar and related products, recently announced the commencement of its US$238.5 million expansion project in Tanzania.
The planned investment at Kilombero Sugar Company, co-owned alongside the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania having 25% stake, has been in the pipeline for a number of years.
Following the obtention of the go-ahead, this new development will increase Kilombero’s sugar production by 144 000 tons from current levels of around 127 000 tons of sugar per annum, to 271 000 tons.
The project construction phase is expected to take 25 months and completion is expected in July 2023.
Other than meeting the local customer demand of sugar, the plant will cogenerate electricity for the Kilombero manufacturing complex and for export to the national Tanzanian grid.
A 4 000 kilolitre increase in the production of ethanol at the adjacent ethanol distillery will be realised, bringing total annual production up to 16 000 kilolitres in order to meet growing local and East African export demand for potable alcohol.
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