Building material technology from Thuringia has a good reputation in Namibia: Not far from the capital of Windhoek, Minister of Economics Wolfgang Tiefensee together with the Namibian Vice President Dr. Nangolo Mbumba recently opened a production facility of the company PolyCare Research Technology Namibia (Pty) Ltd. The company is a joint venture with Namibian and southern Thuringian participation; it will produce components for prefabricated houses here in the future. PolyCare Namibia employs about 30 Namibians who produce enough stones per day for a complete house. The high productivity is made possible by a technology developed by PolyCare Research Technology GmbH (Gehlberg, southern Thuringia) together with the Bauhaus University Weimar. With the help of casting resin and desert sand available on-site, hard and environmentally friendly polymer concrete components are cast; the blocks are processed like Lego bricks, i.e., they are simply inserted into each other and screwed together. With ist investment, the joint venture makes a significant contribution to the Namibian government‘s national Harambee Housing Development Plan for Poverty Reduction. The Thuringian Ministry for Economic Affairs and LEG‘s Thuringia International division have been active in Namibia for some years – several business and science delegations have already visited the country in southern Africa. (hw)
