Tuesday, 19 March 2013

Nigeria can become world’s largest cement market


 (Nigeria)  --  The management of Lafarge Cement WAPCO Nigeria Plc said that Nigeria cement market has the potential to become a huge market in the world.
Add caption


The Managing Director of the company, Mr. Joe Hudson, made this assertion at the 2012 Customers Forum where the company gave out two trucks, cars, TV sets,

Generators and refrigerators to its distributors for their contribution to the growth of the company in the 2012 financial year.


Hudson who put the consumption of cement per capita in Nigeria  around 110 kilos per head, noting that in other developing economies  it is sometimes three times above. He noted that with the population of  160 million population, Nigerian has the capacity which could triple to  actually  about a 50 million tons per year from its present 20 million tons yearly.

“Nigeria’s cement market is one of the most dynamic markets in world. We now have  local capacity of 20 million tons per annum. No where in the planet has there been such an amazing growth.”

Meanwhile, he said, “We need to do things differently to increase consumption. We need to work together to increase consumption. We want cement to get to the nook and cranny of the society and we will partner to achieve this. “We are ready to provide support to you (distributors) in this regard, he told the distributors, as well the block makers.

The Chairman of the company Chief. Olusegun Oshinkeye, who appreciated the Federal Government for its support to the cement industry, said, “the backward integration policy has gone a long way to consolidate the growth and gains of the cement industry where the production capacity of the nation has moved from 2 million metric tones about 12 years ago to 20 million metric tons in the Nigeria.

He attributed this to the doggedness of the distributors, whilst stating that in spite of  the challenges faced by the business sector last year especially in the cement sector “where low sales where recorded, our company continued to give customers value for money.”

“Our products have maintained value and quality. With  Elephant Cement, Elephant Super set Cement and Lafarge Power Max, Elephant Super set they are buying peace of the mind. We believe that this is our way to maintain our heritage and  impact the society where we operate and provide good returns to our sharesholders,” he  noted.

Mr. Sam Ndioyenma,  National Sales Manager of Lafarge, said he is particularly happy with the performance of the distributors, according to him, “without them we have not made any progress and with them we will make much progress. This event is to celebrate you the customers. Many of you have been with us for many years and today we are calling you to reward you for your business partnership and calling you to do much more this year.”

Continuing,  he said, “We will give out various prizes worth millions of Naira. For taking the lead in various aspects of the distributorship including the block makers. We have made contribution in helping Nigeria build itself.”

By Princewill Ekwujuru
Source:

No comments:

Post a Comment