China Africa Cotton Moçambique to invest in cotton sector
China Africa Cotton Moçambique has announced plans, to invest $22 million over the next three years on its programme to boost production and process cotton in the central Mozambican province of Sofala, local media has reported.
More than $6 million of that amount has been invested in construction work for a cotton processing factory, in the Cerâmica neighbourhood on the outskirts of the port city of Beira.
At the inaugural ceremony for the factory, which employs 150 workers, the director of China Africa Cotton Moçambique, Hou Chi Chiang, said that the factory had an annual cotton processing capacity of 40,000 tons of raw cotton.
As well as spinning, the factory also has the ability to produce cooking oil and hospital-grade cotton.
Hou Chi Chiang said that this year, rural workers had sold over 3,000 tons of raw cotton to the company and it had set a target to buy 6,000 tons by next September.
The director of China Africa Cotton Moçambique said that for the 2011/2012 agricultural campaign the company forecast production of 18,000 tons of raw cotton, from an area of around 18,000 hectares, involving over 15,000 family sector producers.
