Harare, New Ziana) – The Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco) has procured an oil expressing plant from China and expects it in the country soon, an official has said.

Cottco chief executive Rockie Mutenha said the plant will be set up in one of the major cotton growing areas of Gokwe, in Midlands province.

“We have already deposited money for a 60 metric tons per day oil expression plant which is coming from China. And we think that it will be delivered within the first quarter of this year. If not, it will be in the second quarter of the year,” he said.

He said the plant will go a long way in fulfilling the government’s push for value addition. “As Cottco, we are also going into value addition. All along, we were ginning and producing two products, that is lint seed and gin seed and selling them as raw products. But in our strategy, we felt that it is necessary to value add our cotton. And therefore gin seed, instead of selling it as gin seed, we are going to crush it into oil, that is cooking oil, vegetable oil,” he said.

“And we are putting it in Gokwe for two major reasons. Gokwe is the hub of cotton growing, so throughput is not a problem. Secondly, we also consider the population, because you get your market from the population, and therefore, once we start expressing oil in Gokwe, the market is there. We will express it, bottle it, and package it, and sell it.” He said more oil expressing plants will be set up in other cotton growing plants.

“We are going to roll it out over time to other places where there is also throughput, Muzarabani, for example, that is over time. But the first one will be in Gokwe,” said Mutenha.

New Ziana