Cheetah Cement Botswana (Pty) Ltd, which includes investment from Chinese backers, has promised to play a crucial role in helping Botswana cut its cement imports to zero. Botswana needs 620,000tpa of cement and the southern African country has been heavily relying on imported cement before the Chinese company was set up, Hui Ming, said the company's general manager.
"We are earmarking an annual output of 900,000t of cement as of next June," said Hui Ming. Hui said the company is looking forward to producing more than what is needed in Botswana with the aim of exporting the cement to other markets such as Botswana's northeastern neighbour, Zimbabwe.
Cheetah Cement was attracted to establish its plant by Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC). With an investment of US$40m, Cheetah Cement started production in February 2022 and the current production is 3000tpm of cement, according to Mr Hui.
For the first time in the history of Botswana, thousands of tonnes of cement will be exported to regional markets, said Keletsositse Olebile, BITC's chief executive officer.
"Botswana will reduce the import bill by over US$90m on annual basis if we are to produce our own cement," said Mr Olebile. Besides import bill reduction, he said the cement plant is expected to create 200 more direct jobs as of June next year.
