If you have ever spent a night at the newly built Hilton Garden Inn located in the Central Business District of the capital Gaborone or went out for dinner at the now famous eat-out restaurant – Table50Two, also in CBD then you have certainly experienced the power of Panda Bricks. In fact, even shoppers at Airport Junction mall have had their share of the strength of this brick which was used to build most part of that mall, if not all of it.
The Panda brick is manufactured by company led by Andre van Zyl who is the managing director.
The company this week unveiled its heavy-duty plant with a capacity of producing over a million first class bricks per month which would see output growing by as much as 80 percent. The plant will also narrow down the cost of producing bricks for the company by as much as 20.
At an event marking the launch of the new heavy-duty plant, managing director – van Zyl said that the first-class bricks are more durable and have more strength thus making them the favourate to build permanent structures.
Zyl said that the new plant, known as VB4 Block Machine will not only put his company on the global manufacturing index but will also boost Botswana’s manufacturing industry and by extension its Gross Domestic Product.
The arrival of the VB4 Block Machine is also expected to push the numbers of jobs created a little higher.
“I would like to let you know that since Panda has acquired the VB4 Block Machine it means that we will be conducting mentorship programmes with young people, training them to be industry ready and we will definitely employ some of them.”, said Zyl.
The manufacturing company – Panda manufacture concrete bricks, blocks and paving. The block making plant is manufactured to heavy-duty standards to ensure long life, high performance and the manufacture of quality products. It has the capacity to drop over a million bricks in one month. Panda plants have a combined value of 7.5 million brick per month making it an annual production capacity of over 90 million bricks.
