Construction has begun on a R150-million condom manufacturing facility at Dube TradePort - a partnership between US-based HBM Group and SA Health.
The new facility will produce 700 000 condoms per day for the local and export markets, according to KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Sihle Zikalala. This includes the government’s newly branded Max condoms which have replaced the Choice brand.
SA Health was previously importing all its stock from a manufacturer in China. However, once government instituted the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) incentives programme, the company decided to start local production within the Dube TradePort’s SEZ Special Economic Zone,
Speaking at the launch today, Zikalala said: “As government, we are working to create a formidable medical and pharmaceutical production and distribution cluster within the Dube TradePort SEZ.”
He pointed to the announcement last week that Cipla Bio-Tec would be investing R 1.3 billion in a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, noting that with this latest development, the KZN government was “well on its way to establishing Dube TradePort’s Special Economic Zone as Africa’s powerhouse in the production and distribution of medical and pharmaceuticals
