Tanga Cement (TCC) expects brisk business from implementation of the East African Community (EAC) Common Market, its officials have said.
To better supply the regional market and meet the growing demand for cement in the country, the company has begun expanding its production capacity.
Managing director Juerg Fluehmann told journalists on Tuesday that the first phase of its expansion programme would increase production capacity from 750,000 tonnes to 1,250,000 tonnes per annum.
"Although we have already started exporting our cement to Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the new capacity, we expect to raise the current exports from 2,000 tonnes to at least 5,000 tonnes per month," he said.
He said an increase of about 67 per cent in output was attained after completing building the second mill at its Tanga plant and the third automatic packer with a capacity to pack 120 tonnes of cement per hour.
The programme was the first expansion project the company has undertaken since commencing operations in 1980, he added.
Plant manager Benedict Lema said the expansion would create more direct and indirect jobs in the national economy.
"We are expecting to employ five additional experts and more other people will be employed indirectly in the mining, packing and transportation of the raw materials for cement production," he said.
The new mill started production on November 11 but will be officially commissioned in February next year.
Tanga Cement’s new capacity now makes the total cement output in Tanzania to be three million tonnes against a national demand of two million tonnes annually.
Cement producers in the region now say there is no need to let in cheap imports and they blame the EAC governments for removing import duties on the commodity.
"The average cement imports, which used to be around 1,000 tonnes per month, have now reached more than 20,000 tonnes,"said Mr Fluehmann.
He said that does not augur well for the investments being made to expand production capacities. He said the unpredictable government import policies have made the company to think twice over implementing the second phase of the expansion programme.
