Cement imports under surveillance
Zimbabwe will increase monitoring and surveillance on cement imports from the region to protect local companies and shield customers from sub-standard shipments, a Cabinet minister said.
This comes as the Ministry of Industry and Commerce has received many applications from traders seeking import licenses following recent shortages of cement in the market.
Zimbabwe attracts imported cement due to excess capacity in the region, particularly Zambia against high prices the product fetches on the local market. This poses a threat to the local market as regional players find it lucrative to export to the country.
Last week, Industry and Commerce Minister Dr Sekai Nzenza met major local producers, namely Lafarge Cement, PPC Zimbabwe and Sino-Zim, who were assured of adequate supplies despite growing demand.
“They are back to full production,” said Dr Nzenza in an interview. “What caused the shortages was a breakdown at one of the plants which has since been repaired.
“I engaged the producers after receiving many applications from people wanting to import cement and I was assured that they (producers) are prepared to meet demand.”
In April this year, the Government gazetted import substitution regulations, Statutory Instrument 89 of 2021, which regulates and controls importation of cement into the country.
The Consignment Based Conformity Assessment (CBCA) programme also safeguards local cement producers from competing with poor quality imports through the pre- importverification for conformity to expected standards.
“His Excellency’s (President Mnangwagwa) “moving up the value chain” agenda in the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) includes the cement manufacturing industry,” said Dr Nzenza.
“This means the priority for the Industry and Commerce Ministry is to enable localization of the manufacturing industry to not only meet national demand but to compete effectively regionally and internationally.”
The Government was constantly engaging with the producers to increase capacity utilization and to resolve the constraints and challenges facing the manufactures.
“In a recent value chain meeting, the cement industry confirmed that they note unjustifiably increase the price of cement.
“The accelerated growth of this industry will be necessitated by utilising the Government’s approach wherein the Ministry is engaging other line Ministries to ensure that economic enablers and the doing business environment is optimum in order to reduce production costs.”
As such, the Government has taken a three pronged approach to increase capacity utilization, optimisation of operations through retooling and monitoring of costs drivers.
“I would like to take note of the positive developments in the industry and applaud the investment leading to initiatives to increase capacity utilization through new technologies in the cement industry,” said Dr Nzenza.
“The cement industry recently became one of the most capitalized segments of the economy. However it does not operate in a vacuum.
The pricing matrix of the cement industry includes the cost energy (power and fuel/coal), raw materials, inbound and outbound transport and other costs such as labour.-herald.cl.z
