Mogadishu (dpa) – Somalian spaghetti is giving Italian importers a hard time as
industry in Mogadishu dusts itself off for a new start after ten years of
anarchy and civil strife.
The mood is upbeat in the capital of this country amid continued meetings
between various Somali communities and tribes in Djibouti aimed at bringing
back normality.
Not only the owners of small industries but ordinary citizens too can be seen
painting and redecorating their homes in anticipation of a new government for
Somalia.
A noodle factory in Huriwah district is one of the plants recently set up in
Mogadishu. The project, a joint venture between Somali businessmen and an
Italian group, is a resounding success, producing more than 7,500 kilograms per
day.
According to factory administrator Dahir Mohamud Nur though, output often
exceeds demand and they sometimes even have to stop the lines temporarily.
Nur said the prevailing peace and local market demands in Somalia for the
Italian noodles have encouraged them to invest into this project.
After seeing the potential for profits, the “SomalPasta” company also opened a
similar factory in the northeast.
The culture of Somalia’s former colonial masters, Italy, is still very evident
in Mogadishu, and the first emerging small factories seem to be concentrating
on Italian-style foodstuffs.
The second factory, which this author visited, is the spaghetti plant, which
has been given investment by the local and gigantic Telecommunications Company,
NationLink.
Locally-manufactured spaghetti sold under the Deeqa brand, is giving the
previously popular Italian Paganni brand a hard time.
There’s serious competition between the two brands and the businessmen running
them. But since the Deeqa ingredients are mainly imported items, Paganni is
unruffled.
“Unfortunately, we have to import the wheat granum necessary for producing our
product,” said Engineer Abdi Mohamed Sabriyeh, the chairman of this subsidiary
factory of NationLink.
Not only foodstuff factories are booming, but plants which concentrate on
environmentally friendly items.
A medium-sized plastic producing plant has just completed its trial period. The
plant turns out the ubiquitious shopping bags which used to have to be imported
from Indonesia, Thailand and China.
The upside of plastic in this case is that the plant is able to recycle plastic
refuse collected from the streets of Mogadishu. Here the refuse is piled high,
with the plastic items most visible.
“We are now planning to ask everybody in town to collect the thrown-away
plastic materials for sale to us so in order to minimize the health hazard the
trash is posing to the public,” said Sabriyeh.
In Mogadishu, hundreds of people have also started refurbishing their houses
and painting them.
With peace a tangible prospect, many of the public transport buses which used
to resemble blackened metallic shells are being refurbished with new windows
and tyres.
Many of those buses have even been serviced in a bid to cut down pollution from
exhaust fumes.
