$150M INVESTMENT PLAN FOR ZIM

POULTRY producer Country Bird has extended its investment in Zimbabwe, despite rising inflation in the country that rocketed to 57 percent last month. Country Bird chief chief executive Marthinus Stander said the company wanted to entrench its footprint in the country. He said the group would invest $150 million (R2.10 billion) in agriculture and poultry. “Over a four-year period we will build a 50 000 broilers per week abattoir, a 500 000 day-old chicks per week hatchery, 30 breeding houses plus 80 broiler houses and two feed mills,” Stander said. Zimbabwe’s poultry industry has been struggling after an outbreak of avian influenza rocked the industry in 2017. Most of the farmers require support through contract farming schemes to guarantee standards, and companies such as British American Tobacco and Delta Corporation have come up with contract farming schemes. Stander, who met President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Thursday, said the investment would be spread to five years. Zimbabwe is desperate for investment to prop up its industries, which are battling rising costs. |