Government imports cement to satisfy demand, Ethiopia
The first shipment of 150,000t of OPC out of 400,000t bought for US$34.6m by Ethiopia’s Public Procurement and Disposal Agency (PPDA), is to arrive in two weeks time.
DG Khan Company Limited (DGKCC) of Pakistan and Global Africa of Israel offered the lowest priced purchase bid floated on 25 June 2011 out of a total of 20 offers submitted.
The cement is to be used for Addis Abeba housing projects, construction of new sugar factories and road construction, according to Yigezu Daba, Director General of the Public Procurement & Property Disposal Service at the agency.
“We chose to purchase the cement from abroad because the local supply can’t meet the demand,” he told Fortune.
While the national demand is estimated to be around 11Mt, the combined total capacity of the 11 companies producing Ethiopia’s cement can only supply 2.3Mta to the market, according to research conducted by the Ministry of Industry (MoI) last year.
State-owned Mugher Cement and Messebo, owned by the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT), which are in the final stages of expansion, are the largest producers in the nation. Their combined production constitutes 57.5 per cent of the 2.3Mt currently produced.
Published under Cement News
