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Miramar / Minister Max Tonela visiting what is the largest bakery in the country
Espiga de Ouro, a Mozambican company located in Matola, Maputo province, is investing about US$50 million in an industrial bakery to supply the local market and eventually, the rest of the country.
The ‘Ear of Gold’ plant, which is due to start operating in late August, will be able to produce about 1.8 million loaves per day, and is expected to employ about 1,200 people throughout its production and distribution chain.
The Minister of Industry and Commerce, Max Tonela, who visited the facilities yesterday, said that the factory would give the city and province of Maputo greater dynamism and, through the competition it represented, guarantee the stabilisation of the weight and price of bread.
Tonela said that the government, through the Mozambican Grain Institute (ICM), had a strategy of ensuring that wheat grown in the Tsangano district of Tete province, which is currently being sold in neighbouring Malawi, was supplied to the domestic bakery industry.
“The indication we have from the owners is that the level of production will be increased as the market evolves, which is making a good investment,” said the minister, and then added that it is planned to create about 1,200 new jobs throughout the entire production and distribution system.
Espiga de Ouro board of directors chairman Hussein Ali said that the factory would operate 22 hours a day and initially produce close to 750,000 round loaves and 135,000 loaves of bread, consuming about four thousand 50-kg sacks of wheat flour, to be supplied by the domestic market.
“Our bread will be supplied to the cities of Maputo and Matola initially. We then hope to be able to expand supply to nearby provinces such as Gaza and Inhambane,” Ali said.
The Mozambican government suspended the bread price subsidy at the end of March this year, justifying its decision with the relative stability of the metical against the US dollar and the fall in the price of wheat in the international market.
It was also observed that the price of bread in bakeries was almost identical whether they were subsidised or not.
By Timoteo Timbe
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