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Engineers from Essar are expected in the country today to lay the groundwork for the re-opening of New Zim Steel formerly Zisco Steel. Responding to questions from captains of industry during the Confederation of Zimbabwean Industry’s workshop to discuss the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation on Wednesday, Industry and Commerce permanent secretary Abigail Shonhiwa said the engineers would be able to indicate when the plant will resume operations.
“There is progress. There have been a lot of discussions and that is why the engineers are coming,” she said.
She added that there will be a lot of new equipment that will be coming through to New Zim Steel mainly from China while some of the equipment at the RedCliff-based company will be refurbished.
Shonhiwa said while efforts are being made to revive New Zim steel some of its subsidiaries such as Lancashire Steel might running within six months.
Lancashire closed two years ago after it failed to pay its workers.
Meanwhile the Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Retired Colonel Christian Katsande and a Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority official said that issues surrounding power that had threatened to stall the project had since been sorted out.
They said that Zera had issued a licence to New Zim Steel to start a power project which has a capacity of producing of 600 MW of which 300MW would be used for operations while the remainder would be fed into the national power grid.
New Zim Steel employs around 3 000 workers but the figure has potential to double once the plant resumes operations.
Online Reporter