Maputo — The building of a tobacco processing factory in the central Mozambican province of Tete has already generated about 700 construction jobs, and is expected to create a further 3,500 jobs when the factory starts operating early next year, reports Thursday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".

Mozambican Labour Minister Mario Sevene visited the undertaking this week, and stressed that the most important gain from the factory would be job creation, one of the key issues discussed during a meeting of his Ministry's Coordinating Council, that took place in Tete recently.

The factory belongs to the Mozambique Leaf Tobacco Company, and the construction work is in the hands of the South African company Grinaker.

The work, budgeted at 53 million US dollars, is to build a processing factory, plus 96 residences, 36 of which are to house managers and technicians, while the remainder are for other workers. The project also includes the building of social and sports infrastructures.

The factory will have a capacity to process about 50,000 tonnes of tobacco a year, produced in the central and northern regions of Mozambique, and to be exported to the United States, Europe and Asia.

The new plant will free Mozambican tobacco producers from dependence on factories in Malawi to process their crop.

During his visit to the site, Sevene criticised the contractor when he noted irregularities in the safety conditions, because some of the workers were not supplied with the appropriate protective clothing.