Gisborne to get country's biggest wood processing plant

3.00pm

Gisborne is to be the home of New Zealand's largest wood processing plant, Industry Minister Jim Anderton announced today.

He said the Government, Gisborne District Council and Port Gisborne had agreed to establish the $100 million plant which would process wood from Hikurangi Forest Farms.

It would be nearly double the size of the largest plant now operating, Waipa in Rotorua, and create hundreds of new jobs.

"The new plant will be so large that it will process the equivalent of the volume of logs currently shipped out from the Gisborne port per year and will be three times the size of the largest plant in the region," Mr Anderton said.

- NZPA