BUFFALO, NY -  Norwood Sawmills says it will distribute its portable sawmills in South Africa and much of sub-Saharan Africa through Austro, a large distributor of wood processing equipment in Africa.

  Based in South Africa,  Austro was established in 1980 and is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The two firms made the announcement today at WoodEX, the Africa trade exhibition in Johannesburg.

Norwood president Ashlynne Dales says his firm's sawmills are ideally suited to operating in Africa and meeting the demands of commercial and industrial operations.

Norwood has nearly 50 patents worldwide, more than the combined total of all the portable sawmill companies in the world.

Norwood says it targets its research and development on technology to reduce the time it takes to mill a log into lumber, eliminating operator functions and increasing capacity. Norwood sawmills are  built to mill timber day-in-and-day-out with a minimum of maintenance and in the harshest of conditions.

“Now is the time to make it even easier and even more affordable for Africans to add Norwood mills to their wood processing operations,” says Ashlynne Dale, president of Norwood.