Friday, March 29, 2024
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Walia set to open new steel factory

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Walia Steel Industry Plc, one of the fastest growing manufacturing industry in Ethiopia, is set to expand its business by adding rebar and wire rod production.
The company stated that the new branch of the industry that will introduce different products from the existing industry will be installed on a plot of 100,000 square meters of land.
The new factor, S.H Steel Manufacturing, is a joint venture company with foreign partner and is built in Addis Ababa around Haile Garment, south eastern of Addis Ababa. It will be able to process 500,000 metric tons of steel, according to Badege Kebede, General Manager of Walia Steel.
Walia Steel has 60 percent share in the new factory, while the remaining is covered by a foreign investor. The new factory is built with a total investment capital of USD 11 million and is set to create jobs for 200 employees and produces reinforcement bar and wire rod, according to Badege.
Badege told Capital that his company would disclosed his partner when some papers works are fully done.
“In the future we plan to build a strong construction inputs manufacturing brand in Africa. And we plan to further expand our investment and create more jobs and boost our tax and related contributions to the government,” he said, urging the government to give priority to the companies engaged in manufacturing sector to access quickly hard currency for importing raw materials.
“For now to help us get some amount of hard currency to import raw materials for our steel manufacturing, we are engaged in export of coffee that was established as a separate company,” he said.
Walia Steel Industry is one of the companies owned by Sisay Investment Group. Focusing on the construction sector, the Group has invested in over half a dozen companies ranging from real estate, construction, paint manufacturing to mineral water bottling.
Walia Steel Industry, Best Paint Industry, Best Plastic Industry, Best Plastic Pipe Industry, Sebeta Mineral Water Bottling, Horizon General Construction and Amba Real Estate are owned by Sisay Investment Group.
“Over the past years we managed to launch new factories by re-investing our profits from different projects,” Bedege said.
Sisay Investment Group is owned by Sisay Tesfaye, who began his investment journey by establishing a small plastic manufacturing company about two decades ago.
Walia Steel Industry has created jobs for over 1,000 employees including the temporary staff, according to Badege.
Walia Steel Industry, located at Alem Gena, western outskirt of Addis Ababa in Oromia region, was established in 2006 and has an annual production capacity of 800,000 metric tons of sheet metal and different hollow sections.
Currently the steel industry in the country is booming and will become one of export industrial product since the local demands seems surplus.
However experts claimed that due to lack of hard currency to import raw material the industries are unable to run fully with their capacity.
Some of the industries also claimed that their production is below half due to lack of inputs.

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