“It took so long because we are in a country that was destroyed,” Barado said, adding that it is difficult to start a factory in Somalia where there is little support to ease the process.
The factory began construction in January 2012 and finished in December.
The factory has 50 employees, including women, and more people will be hired soon, according to Director of Technology Mohamud Abdullahi Ahmed, who said some of the workers had been trained in China.
Every 16 hours, the plant produces 70,000 books that are ready to be sold in the market, he told Sabahi. The factory is environmentally friendly and uses a system that limits excess noise and smoke, he said.
This is the first factory of its kind to open in Somalia since the collapse of the central government two decades ago, factory General Manager Hassan Nur said. The total cost of the project was about $5 million.
During the first phase, the factory is slated to print exercise books for students, factory General Manager Hassan Nur told Sabahi. Within the first few months of 2013, it will also produce A4 office paper, notebooks and packaging cartons, Nur said.
In an effort to stop importing factory materials from abroad, the company will at the end of the year manufacture its own materials to make paper. “We want to be self-sufficient with the printing materials that our production requires, which we currently buy from China,” Nur said.
“Our aim is to sell our products across Somalia and to neighbouring countries such as Djibouti and Ethiopia,” he said.