A 0.5Mta cement plant is due to be built in the Chibabava district of Mozambique’s central Sofala province, the country’s President, Armando Guebuza, announced.

Mozambican news agency AIM reported that at a meeting with residents of Maxixe, a municipality in Inhambane province, President Guebuza noted that if electricity was available the cement plant, a result of cooperation with China, would already have been set up in the region.

“There is an abundance of limestone in the region, which is the main raw material used to manufacture cement, and the only thing lacking was electricity,” said Guebuza. The President indicated that a new gas pipeline could be built from the natural gas fields in Temane, in the coastal province of Inhambane to supply the plant.