Companies have to diversify and expand their businesses, as they can no longer rely solely on South Africa for income, PPC Cement MD Richard Tomes said on Tuesday at the opening plenary session of the Totally Concrete and African Construction expos, in Sandton, Engineering News reports.
He stated that owing to factors such as low growth forecasts, high inflation rates, service delivery problems and industrial action in the platinum sector “South Africa is not a happy place at the moment”.
“Those companies who are solely relying on the South African market, I think, are dying a slow death,” Tomes said, adding that this was why PPC was diversifying its business to target more African countries.
He further highlighted that South Africa currently had a more than 30% cement supply capacity surplus and that even with 8% per annum economic growth, South Africa would only run out of cement in 2020.
PPC would be investing $1-billion in projects in Algeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zimbabwe “over coming years”, Tomes pointed out.
“While Zimbabwe has a small economy, the country would soon run out of cement production capacity and PPC would be well positioned to take advantage of this.
By: Leandi Kolver
