A worker cuts steel rods at a construction site. Almost all plants in
Tanzania are operating at less than 22 per cent of their in-built
capacity as a result of the cheap imports choking the market. PHOTO |
EVANS HABIL | NMG
Tanzania’s steel and plastics firm Lodhia Group is putting up the country's first billets plant.
According
to Lodhia Group managing director Sailesh Pandit, the plant will help
meet the high demand for billets in Tanzania and neighbouring countries
besides helping fight off under-valued, under-declared and substandard
steel imports from South Africa that have flooded the market.
Tanzania’s
demand for steel stands at 440,336 tonnes a year, but dumped imports
alone grab the market share by 200,000 tonnes, equivalent to 45 per
cent.
Billets are used in the production of iron bars, round bars, twisted bars, angle lines, hollow section, black pipes and wires.
Speaking
to delegates of the 39th Ordinary Sadc Summit of Heads of State and
Government, who had visited the firm’s plants at Mkuranga, Mr Pandit
said the new plant, whose construction is due for completion next month,
will produce 150,000 tonnes of billets a year.
Going
by the Steel Manufacturers Association, almost all plants in Tanzania
are operating at less than 22 per cent of their in-built capacity as a
result of the cheap imports choking the market.
The manufacturers of steel products have been pleading with the
government to protect the industry as Kenya and Uganda did, lest they
lay off workers to reduce overheads compounded by the glut.
Kenya
and Uganda have imposed anti-dumping and safeguard duty of 35 per cent
or $250 per tonne on coated steel imports by applying the Common
External Tariff.
The two countries imported only about
9,000 tonnes and 8,000 tonnes of raw materials for corrugated iron
sheets and allied products, respectively, in 2017, as opposed to
Tanzania’s 70,000
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