Knauf Tanzania unveils new expansion plan

THE manufacturer of construction materials, Knauf Gypsum Tanzania plans to invest further 115bn/-, thanks to the country’s conducive business environment that has enabled steady growth in the local construction sector.

Knauf East Africa Regional Director Ilse Boshoff said in Dar es Salaam at the weekend that with the new expansion at Mkuranga, Knauf Tanzania will be the largest production facility in East and Sub-Sahara Africa and production capacity will triple the size of the current capacity (40.5 million square meters a year) and at the same time the export volume will increase to 170 per cent.

“Mkuranga plant current capacity is 15 million square meters a year. We further expect to expand our capacity to 43 million square meters a year in 2025 with an investment of 115bn/-,” she said while unveiling the expansion plan.

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She said the company with German origin has so far invested over 163bn/- in the production of building materials such as gypsum boards, moisture resistant boards, fire resistant boards, skimming plasters and metal profiles.

She said that the company was grateful to the government, customers and industrial players for making Knauf investment journey exciting in Tanzania.

“Knauf Tanzania is moving from strength to strength. Our story begun in 2014 when we opened a representative office here in Tanzania and later on Knauf Gypsum Tanzania in 2015.

The process of acquiring assets for a local gypsum board production company began in 2015 and became a local Tanzanian producer in 2017,” she said.

The Regional Director said in 2018 construction of the state-of-the-art production plant in Mkuranga commenced and in 2020, it was commissioned with production capacity of 15Mio.m2/year.

She said the Euro project was self-financed through capital injection by the German Knauf International GmbH.

Knauf Customer, Mr Dickson Mtekere from Dar es Salaam based Shananga Group Limited thanked the company for organising the event which served as a networking opportunity as well as a platform to know company’s plans.

“I’m grateful to Knauf Tanzania for organising this event which apart from networking has also provided to us as partners, useful insights about the company.

We have been informed that the company has employed over 160 Tanzanians directly and many other across its business value chain.

The expansion of Mkuranga plant will create new employment and business opportunities and the government will get more revenue through various taxes. This is recommendable investment which benefits all of us,” he said.

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