Zimbabwe: South African cement producer PPC (Pretoria Portland Cement) has announced that its Zimbabwe subsidiary Portland Holdings Limited (PHL) has been awarded an indigenisation certificate by the government of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe's Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act requires that non-indigenous manufacturing companies operating in Zimbabwe must submit an empowerment plan, to satisfy a 51% indigenous Zimbabwean ownership requirement by October 2015. PHL had a pre-existing indigenous shareholding of 21.4%. It will sell an additional 29.6% to four indigenous parties in the country.
"We see the Zimbabwe market as an exciting growth opportunity and expect our operations to approach full capacity over the next two-three years. This opens up further investment opportunities for PPC in Zimbabwe," said PPC chief executive officer, Paul Stuiver.
PHL is the largest cement producer in Zimbabwe. Together the clinker manufacturing plant in Colleen Bawn and the milling depot in Bulawayo can produce over 1Mt/yr of cement. Zimbabwe has experienced a rapid increase in cement demand since 2009. National cement demand is currently estimated at more than 1Mt/yr.
