Oliver Kazunga

Senior Business Reporter

DINSON Iron and Steel Company (Disco) — which recently commenced production at its US$1,5 billion steelworks in Manhize, near Mvuma — will start supplying its products to the local and regional markets next month.

The company, which is owned by China’s leading stainless steel producer, Tsingshan Holdings Group Limited, is said to have the biggest integrated steel plant in Africa.

Under the first phase, Disco targets a production capacity of 600 000 tonnes per annum and 1,2 million tonnes in the second phase and 3,2 million tonnes in the third phase, before subsequently reaching five million tonnes in the final phase.

The firm, which started manufacturing pig iron last month, is producing 1 400 tonnes per day. The production of steel billets began this month.

The steel manufacturing concern, which presently is operating at 60 percent capacity, is able to meet the 400 000 tonnes per annum required by the domestic market.

Tsingshan Holdings Group Limited’s two other local subsidiaries are Dinson Colliery and Afrochine Smelting.

Last week, Disco project director Mr Wilfred Motsi said, while his organisation would focus on satisfying the local market first, the recently held Southern African Development Community Industrialisation Week (SIW) in Harare saw the steel producer receiving significant inquiries from the region.

“At the moment, we have not started selling to the market; we are stockpiling and taking inquiry orders. Hopefully, by next month, we will start supplying the market.

“We are presently operating at 60 percent and going by our production target, we are very much able to gradually meet the demand from our markets — both locally and regionally.

“Currently, Zimbabwe is consuming about 400 000 tonnes and the recently held SIW helped us significantly. As you might be aware, during that event, we had a series of meetings with Southern African Development Community (SADC) people and we generated a lot of inquiries from the region,” he said.

Since the closure of the Redcliff-based steel manufacturer, Zisco, once the largest integrated steel plant north of the Limpopo, in 2008, domestic firms have been importing steel and other related raw materials from the region and abroad, in countries that include China and India.

As a result of Zisco’s closure, the country has lost millions of foreign currency importing steel and related products.

At its peak in the 1990s, Zisco produced over one million tonnes of steel per annum, employing more than 5 000 people directly.

In an interview during the SIW, Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (Zida) chairperson Mr Busisa Moyo said the Manhize steel plant has come as a game-changer in the country’s economy.

“Dinson continues to put investment on the downstream. They are a mining concern, but they are putting investment on the downstream manufacturing,” he said.

Mr Moyo said Zida will continue to perform its mandate of making sure investors come into Zimbabwe.

“We are attracting investments across the opportunities: tourism, energy, mining and also manufacturing, which is at the centre of industrialisation.

“Industry or manufacturing sector has seen us licensing quite a few manufacturing concerns that have come into the country and we continue going out to attract investment into the manufacturing sector,” he said.