Hafun Salt Factory: Difference between revisions

In 1930, an [[Italy|Italian]] firm called "Società Saline e Industrie della Somalia settentrionale [[Migiurtina]]" ("Saline Companies and Industries of Northern Somalia Migiurtina") invested huge capital to exploit salt deposits in Dante and Hurdiyo. The Hafun Salt Factory was created and was the main producing facility of sea [[salt]] onin the world in the 1930s. By 1933 or 1934, the Dante salt works were producing more than 200,000 metric tons of salt, most of which was exported to [[India]] &and the [[Far East]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Ahmed|first1=Ahmed Abbas|title=Transformation Towards a Regulated Economy|page=74}}</ref>

The industrial facility of "Saline Dante" gave work to 600 Italians and 20002,000 natives (nearly all the native males in Hafun), giving a huge boost to the local Somali economy: Dante city (now called Hafun) grew to more than 50005,000 inhabitants in 1939. Electrical plants were built in the Dante area for the facility, together with an aqueduct, solving the semi-desert area problems for the first time in its history. The production reached nearly half a million tons per year in the late 1930s and was supposed to increase in the 1940s, but World War II stopped it.

{{Quote|''Soon after the First World War, the Italians realized that the shallow bay of Hafun, which had a long, low beach along the mainland side, was a perfect place for a large salt works. The "Società Saline e Industrie della Somalia Settentrionale" built on both sides of the [[peninsula]] of [[Ras Hafun]] (Hafun and Hurdiyo) what would be the largest salt-works in the world. The firm, constituted in Milan in 1922, rebuilt a town for 5,000 inhabitants in what was ancient Hafun and called it with the name "Dante". Construction began in 1922 and was completed by 1929. In 1931, production began at the salt factory and soon the enterprise at Ras Hafun was exporting by sea over three hundred thousand tons of salt a year for industrial use. In 1941, during World War II, the British, who had lost British Somaliland to an Italian attack, sent north into Somalia from [[Kenya]] an expeditionary force that captured all of Italian East Africa and in the process destroyed the salt works.''<ref>[http://wikimapia.org/3994872/Old-Italian-salt-production-facility Facility history & map]</ref>}}

However, in late 2014, the Udug Limited Company, in conjunction with the [[United States]]-based REDD Engineering & Construction Incorporation,<ref name="ReddEngineering2017">{{cite web |title=REDD |url=http://www.reddengineering.com |publisher=REDD Engineering & Construction Incorporation |accessdate=2017-03-28}}</ref> began conducting feasibility studies for the renovation of the salt production plants in Hafun and Hurdiyo. The first phase of the initiative was completed in March 2015, and saw the historic salt works in both towns refurbished following community-wide consultations. REDD Engineering official Lowry Redd indicated that the initiative aims to make the plant in [[Hafun District|the area of Hafun]] one of the main global suppliers of salt.<ref name="Gssir">{{cite news|title=Somalia salt industry revives|url=http://www.garoweonline.com/page/show/post/1948/somalia-salt-industry-revives|agency=Garowe Online|access-date=2016-01-21|archive-date=2016-01-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160114205651/http://www.garoweonline.com/page/show/post/1948/somalia-salt-industry-revives|url-status=dead}}</ref>