China Heavy Duty Truck Group (SinoTruck) has shown interest of building an assembly plant in Dar es Salaam to cater the growing needs for heavy duty vehicles in East Africa and beyond.

The Chinese Ambassador to Tanzania, Mr Liu Xinsheng, said the company took his invitation to build the assembly plant in the country seriously.

“I have invited the firm to Tanzania and they have taken the invitation very seriously,” Mr Liu told President Jakaya Kikwete minutes before the head of state laid the foundation stone for the 25bn/- Ushirika Tower yesterday.

To show the firm’s seriousness, the Ambassador presented a Howo truck model to the president as a symbol of commitment. Howo is a leading SinoTruck brand. “I am very glad to be another ambassador of the two co-operatives — Tanzania and China, so the two sides will establish friendly partnership and exchange the experience,” the Ambassador said.

He added: “In that way, we can deepen and expand the friendship to all the peoples of the two countries.” Mr Liu said at the moment the China National Heavy Duty Truck Group, located in Jinan city, Shandong Province, sold between 500 and 600 heavy duty trucks to Tanzania per year.

The ambassador was invited to greet the president during the foundation stone laying ceremony held at the 25bn/- Ushirika Tower construction site at Mnazi Mmoja area.

The tower will have 20 floors. “We are also planning to build three completely knock-down (CKD) assembly facilities overseas through cooperation with local manufacturers,” the SinoTruck website, www.sinotruck.hk, indicates without mentioning countries in particular.

The company, now producing 200,000 trucks a year, is famous for developing and manufacturing the first heavy duty truck–’Huanghe’ brand vehicle model JN150 in China. Later on, SinoTruck introduced the ‘Steyr’ heavy duty truck production project and set up a joint venture with Swede Volvo to manufacture the heavy duty trucks of up-to-date international level.

SinoTruck principal products include cargo trucks and truck chassis with gross vehicle weight of over 14 tonnes as well as semi-tractor trucks with trailing capacity over 12 tonnes, tipper and special truck chassis. The major product series include Howo, Sitaier King, Sitaier and Huanghe series, servicing a wide range of customers from all major industries that utilize heavy trucks, including infrastructure, construction, container transportation, logistics, mining, steel and chemical industries.

Source : in2eastafrica.net