After nearly a decade of inactivity, the only plant in Mozambique capable of producing glass bottles will resume production mid-2008, according to Director of Industry, Sergio Macamo. Vidriera, located in Matola, will be taken over by an unnamed S African firm, Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique said. Mr. Macamo declined to say how much money the S Africans would invest in Vidreira "because preparations for the relaunch are still under way. But it is a fact that everything will be ready for this relaunch in mid-2008." Vidreira was once state-owned, but production came to a stop during the war of destabilisation. With privatisations of the 1990s, Vidreira was sold off in 1996 to the Portuguese glassware company Barboso e Almeida, which promised to invest US$10M to rehabilitate the factory. Production resumed in 1998, but the site was abandoned soon afterwards. According to Macamo, when Vidreira is again rehabilitated it will provide bottles for the major Mozambican container glass consumers including brewer Cervejas de Mocambique, and the local branch of Coca-Cola. In 1998, the Vidreira furnaces were said to be capable of producing 120/tpd and of supplying 5% of the entire southern African glassware market. Reactivating Vidreira is part of the government's wider strategy of finding new owners for industries which, although currently inactive, remain viable.
