Hippo Valley contributes to Vision 2030

Sunday Mail Reporter

Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed sugar producer Hippo Valley is committed to implementing projects that contribute to the attainment of an upper middle-income economy status by 2030, company chief executive Mr Aiden Mhere has said.

Speaking during the Hippo Valley Estates and Triangle Limited engagement with editors, Mr Mhere said the company was working on helping the nation improve its electricity generation capacity. “The company also contributed to the nation’s objective of improved access to modern energy through expanding and reinforcing the transmission grid to ensure system stability and supply security,” he said.

“The contribution is through electricity produced at our two mills at Hippo Valley and Triangle from sugarcane fibre, about 5 megawatts of which is supplied to the national grid.

“Co-generation capacity is being upgraded at a cost of US$1 million at the Hippo Valley mill to enable a total of 10MW to be fed into the national grid.”

Mr Mhere said the company’s sugar exports were helping the country improve its foreign currency receipts.

“In terms of contributing towards improved earnings from trade and investment, with a 2022 national target of US$5,45 billion, the company in the period April 2019 to July 2022, exported some US$109 million of sugar, with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe retaining 25 percent of the foreign currency,” said Mr Mhere.“Locally, sugar sales earned approximately US$353 million, with 20 percent retained by the RBZ to fund forex expenditure.”

The company, he said, has disbursed US$16 million to improve access to health facilities in local communities.

“Some US$16 million equivalent has been spent on health at the company’s hospitals and clinics in the last three years and the facilities cater for 230 000 patients per annum,” he said.

Hippo Valley Estates board chairperson, Mr Canaan Dube, urged the media to report on the economic issues.“I challenge you to recognise that economic issues can be as important as political ones. Hence the watchdog press needs to also report robustly on economic developments and news,” he said.

The company, which has over 15 000 employees, is currently farming sugarcane on 24 986 hectares at Triangle, Mwenezana and Hippo Valley Estates.

It has the capacity to produce 4,8 million tonnes of sugarcane annually.