Tanzania made great strides throughout the last decade in improving its infrastructure and communications networks with the cement industry being a key beneficiary of the building boom despite the country’s power crisis.
Up to five years ago the country had three cement plants with a combined installed capacity of 4.65 million tonnes a year, but to date there are seven cement producers.
Nigeria’s Dangote Cement, scheduled to start production before the end of this year, will be the eighth and expected to push up production capacity to over 6.0 million tonnes annually.
Developments in the cement industry in the recent days are said to have impacted the two listed companies on Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE).
The two giant manufacturers – Tanzania Portland Cement Company (Twiga Cement) and Tanga Cement Company (Simba Cement) – shares plunged at the time when a number of new firms set plants. DSE cement manufacturers share prices depreciated by between 6.0 and 11% since the beginning of 2015.
Though the industry is blossoming, at the same time, cheap imports from the Middle East countries have continued to enter Tanzanian markets.
These cheap imports are creating unfair competition as they benefit from widespread acts of tax evasion through under declaration of prices and volumes delivered into local markets.
