Tanzania Portland Cement Company (TPCC) profit has gone up by 3% to 56.2bn/- despite depreciation of the shilling that had impacted fuel, spares and quarry services.
TPPC, trading as Twiga Cement, said the profit in 2015 was realised due to stable cement demand in the country that should grow at about 7%.
According to the statement, profitability was also attributed to Twiga’s capacity increase last year, pushing up sales volume by 22%.
Cement demand in Tanzania and in the East Africa bloc has been growing steadily over the last years, prompting Twiga Cement to invest in expansion. The impact of shilling depreciation that fell by 23%, was offset through efficient variable cost management and fixed cost reduction.
Twiga announced a dividend of 306/- a share, which represents an increase of 14.6% compared to 267/- per stock of 2014. The proposed dividend includes two interim of 95/- and 111/- per share paid last October and this February respectively.
Despite increasing dividend amount the firm stock since January trades under bearish mode. The share price dropped 14.9% to 2,700/- to yesterday. Last year the company targeted to produce 1.5 million tonnes up from 1.4 million tonnes produced in 2014.
The increased capacity follows last year’s commissioning of a new 700,000 tonne- production line.
