Cabo Delgado: Cement factory producing at a third of its capacity – AIM report

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Cabo Delgado: Cement factory producing at a third of its capacity – AIM report

2:43 CAT | 31 Jan 2018

O País

The cement factory inaugurated about a year ago in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado is producing at less than a third of its capacity, due to lack of demand, according to a report on the independent television station STV.

The Chinese-owned factory, located 25 kilometres from the provincial capital, Pemba, has the capacity to produce 1,000 tonnes of cement a day, but production is currently running at around 300 tonnes a day.

Speaking to a delegation from the Confederation of Mozambican Business Associations (CTA), one of the factory’s managers, Paulo Wang, said the main problem is the low demand for cement throughout northern Mozambique.

But he thought demand would pick up when a start is made to building liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in the Cabo Delgado district of Palma. “We envisage increasing production from 300 to 800 tonnes a day, once the oil and gas investments arrive in Palma”, said Wang.

The factory can supply cement for the northern three provinces (Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula). Wang said the main competition comes from Tanzanian cement, but the price of Cabo Delgado cement is lower than the price of the Tanzanian product.

“When we went to Palma, only Tanzanian cement was being sold there”, said Wang. “But now the clients are looking for the product of our company. Ours is cheaper than the Tanzanian cement”.

The CTA delegation, headed by the organisation’s chairperson, Agostinho Vuma, also visited Cabo Delgado tourism ventures. Despite the province’s pristine beaches and spectacular wildlife, tourism is on the decline, Osman Yacob, owner of a hotel under construction in Pemba, said that the low level of occupation of hotel beds in Pemba was “frightening”, but he was hopeful of better days when the investment in the natural gas mega-projects finally arrives.

With that investment “the inflow of both worker and tourists will increase”, he forecast.

Source: AIM