Located in the Industrial Pole of Viana, Luanda, the assembly line starts operating on Thursday 15th. For now, the company is just carrying out tests and training the workers.
The line was inaugurated by the Minister of State for Economic Coordination, Manuel Nunes Júnior, who highlighted the "great exchange efforts" to ensure the import of this type of product, which cost the state coffers the annual average of three million dollars.
According to Jornal de Angola, the line will allow the plant to ensure the production of hot rolling of bars, profiles, angles and steel rods, thus increasing the installed capacity of 90 thousand tons per year.
In 2010, the installed capacity was 3000 tons per month, having passed five years later to 7000 tons per month and today to 12,000 tons per month, with production 60 percent below the company's conditions due to the lack of scrap received and insufficient energy supply. Currently the factory has a network of suppliers, which collect scrap daily in several locations in the country, an average daily of 250 tons.
In this regard, Manuel Nunes Júnior said that the government is working to extend the purchase of scrap, currently with 21 suppliers, to all sectors of the economy, including the oil and mining industries, in addition to other non-traditional scrap production.
This investment is expected to create about 677 jobs (555 nationals and 122 expatriates). In an initial phase, the plant will have the help of 455 national and 107 foreign workers, the same newspaper says.
This bet will strengthen the national economy. The line will allow the country to produce bars, angles and profiles, products never produced until then in Angola. For this reason, it is expected that these products will help the country to reduce the number of imports of this type of elements and thus diversify the economy.
Fabrimetal also intends to help the national economy by exporting 25 percent of its production to countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Zambia, Ghana, Senegal, Mali, among others.
In his speech, Manuel Nunes Júnior stressed that the executive has focused its government action on increasing national production, based on the revitalization of the country's productive base, with a view to relaunching economic growth and increasing the number of jobs in Angola.
"We must resume the economic growth path of our country, as we know it was interrupted by the financial economic crisis that erupted in 2014," he said.
Fabrimetal is part of the MMD Steel group. For nearly 10 years in the sector, the company has been present in several countries: Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Mali, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Senegal.
"The industrial proliferation in the area of the Industrial Pole of Viana has boosted the local economy, creating the conditions for more than 500 Angolans to be involved in rod production today. Fabrimetal is proud to recruit and train local workers, contributing to the increase of financial stability of many families, fostering a huge sense of pride in domestic production and continues to develop expansion plans, for the company and the team," says the company in a statement quoted by Jornal de Angola.
