Cement scheduled to arrive Wednesday

The first shipment of cement to the island of Jamaica which is expected to ease the current shortage of supplies is scheduled to arrive Wednesday. However, the supplies will not be distributed to the market immediately. The shipment will have to undergo at least three days of testing by the Bureau of Standards.

Last month the management of Caribbean Cement announced that it would have to import cement from Barbados over the next four months in order to address the chronic shortage of the product on the local market. General Manager of Carib Cement, Anthony Haynes, said 40,000t of cement will be brought into the island. He says 16,000t will be imported this month and the remainder in the first quarter of next year.

In the meantime, Caribbean Cement is looking at ways to minimise the financial losses it is likely to suffer due to the current shortage as well as the cost of importing supplies. General Manager of Carib Cement, Anthony Haynes, says the company is prepared to fully absorb import costs.

Earlier Caribbean Cement had successfully lobbied the Jamaican government to ban imports from a number of independent trading groups as a quid pro quo for proceeding with a significant new investment designed to boost local production.