Centre calls for investment in manufacture of ceramics

Some of the ceramic products

What you need to know:

The situation is due to absence of proper investment in the ceramic production.

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania has enough raw materials and required expertise for ceramic production but a large portion of the product is imported.

The situation is due to absence of proper investment in the ceramic production.

Now the African Mineral and Geosciences Centre (AMGC) – a regional mineral service provider - calls on public and private investors to invest in the business in order to attract both foreigners and tourists with locally produced ceramic tableware which are different from the ones produced in their countries.

AMGC ceramist Lucas Kalombola told BusinessWeek that they are trying to find investors who can invest in ceramic tableware as well as electrical porcelain ceramic equipment used for distributing electricity in residential areas.

The ceramics department utilises raw materials from mineral rocks that were initially seen as low value but now seen as development minerals.

The raw materials include kaolin, dolomite, clay, feldspar, despite and silica.

The department mostly specialises in trainings and production of ceramics products.

Mr Kalombola explained that decades ago, the country owned the largest ceramics industry in EAC known as Morogoro Ceramics that later collapsed when it was privatised. “We now depend wholly on imported goods despite having our own expertise as well as raw materials to produce our own products,” he said.

“Now we practise at AMGC but at a small scale depending on orders we receive mostly from local hotels, diplomats and few from foreign countries including Germany,” he said.

According to him a majority of Tanzanians don’t appreciate the items which are handmade and prefer to use imported.

Explaining he said Tanzanians opt for imported products because the country produces handmade and therefore expensive compared to machine made items.

He stressed that the table ware items are an African Art and need to be promoted by locals.

In another development, he said that they were looking for an investor to invest in electoral porcelain that is used to distribute electricity in residential areas. He said they are looking for funds because they have the knowledge but need an investor who is ready to invest in the project.

“We are currently in talks with Tanzania Electrical Supply Company (Tanesco) to invest in the project.

He noted that the small scale miners will benefit from the mining the sand and selling to manufactures who in turn develop the equipment’s for distributing electricity to the public.

In another development he said that the ceramic department was currently using the raw materials to produce table ware products.

Meanwhile AMGC, ceramic producer, Regina Kalombola said that apart from producing tableware she also runs different courses on ceramics production.

She said they get students from Jamaica, Namibia and even local persons from Mtwara Nachigwea.

On his part, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said AMGC was established to manage minerals for member state countries.

In view of this, he said Africa is endowed with different kinds of minerals including the ones that were initially undervalued but now seen as development minerals.

“We need to put up friendly environment for investing in minerals as well as improve skills to enable our people increase value addition,” he said.

MORE INFO: ABOUT CERAMIC

A ceramic is an inorganic, non-metallic, solid material comprising metal, non-metal or metalloid atoms primarily held in ionic and covalent bonds. Traditional ceramic raw materials include clay minerals such as kaolinite, whereas more recent materials include aluminium oxide, more commonly known as alumina. The modern ceramic materials, which are classified as advanced ceramics, include silicon carbide and tungsten carbide. Both are valued for their abrasion resistance, and hence find use in applications such as the wear plates of crushing equipment in mining operations. Advanced ceramics are also used in the medicine, electrical, electronics industries and body armor.