Chinese fibre-optic cable manufacturer Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Company (YOFC) has announced plans to establish a telecommunications fibre cable manufacturing facility at the Dube TradePort north of Durban.
Yangtze Optical Fibre (Africa) will be headquartered in Johannesburg. Its Dube TradePort facility will be able to produce up to a million fibre kilometres of cabling every year.
The investment will be completed and operational in the fourth quarter of 2016, it said. YOFC will reportedly invest R150m in the manufacturing site and adjoining warehousing facility.
The Durban plant will supply both South African telecoms companies and the broader African market with fibre cables.
YOFC was founded in 1988 as a Sino-foreign equity joint venture company. It was converted into a joint stock limited liability company in December 2013 and was subsequently listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The company is headquartered in Wuhan, in the Optics Valley in the East Lake Hi-tech Development Zone in China.
“South Africa and Africa offer considerable scope for development in all telecoms sectors in the near future, with broadband Internet subscribers constantly growing in years to come,” said YOFC CEO Zhuang Dan in a statement.
“Investments in this area are therefore key to help YOFC to be ready to answer to the consequent increase in market demand and to support its customers in the region.” — © 2015 NewsCentral Media
