TZ gets $8.8m wood facility

By BW Reporter, featured in East African Business Week:

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Tanzania. DAR. Kilombero Valley Teak Company Ltd (KVTC) has established a modern sawmill and wood processing facility worth US $8.8 million to generate export revenue.

KVTC said that the processing plants were commissioned in August this year and will generate substantial and sustainable export revenue in excess of US $10 million per annum.

Speaking to East African Business Week in Dar es Salaam last week, the Forest Products Manager of KVTC, Mr Hans Lemm, said out of generating export revenue, the progress will also work to boost production capacity of woods in the country.

KVTC has managed to plant approximately 7,800 hectares of teak trees since 1993 and manages approximately 20,000 hectares of indigenous forestry land in the country. According to KVTC, as part of the normal management regime of the plantations at TVTC thinning is now being harvested fro more mature compartments.

“In order to process this teak, KVTC has decided to construct a modern sawmill and wood processing facility worth US $8.8 million from which teak flooring and other products will be exported from Tanzania,” said Mr Lemm.

Mr Lemm added that markets for KVTC’s products are mostly in the far east, Europe and Northern America. KVTC says, the investment is one of the most significant in the East African forestry sector.

The addition of the processing plants in 2009 is fulfilling its commitment at inception of processing the trees where they are grown, so that the local people may benefit from the entire process of KVTC activity,” explained Mr Lemm.

KVTC Community Development manager, Mr Kennedy Haule said that his firm has so far provided employment opportunities to around 700 people on its plantations.

“There is a direct employment of approximately 120 people who work and manage its plantations and 110 people that are employment at the wood processing facilities,” said Mr Haule.

According to the firm’s general manager, the processing complex in arguably the most modern factory of its kind in Africa and north of South Africa.