REINNIER KAZÉ FOR TARTAR: What challenges have you
faced in setting up?
The installation here started in 2012
as a construction project, and because
of difficulties with the soil we had to
build pillars and it took us some more
time. In April 2015, the construction
was officially finished. [...] We started
production progressively but went very
quickly. We started with a 0% market
share and in April 2016 we overpassed
50% of the market share in the country.
Our competitor, Lafarge, which has a
very good brand name, has been here
for 50 years as a monopoly but now
they have about 30%.
We have a capacity of 1.5m tonnes
per annum [...]. Today we have more
or less 700 people here and I
am very proud to say they are 99%
Cameroonians. If you take the cement
plant plus the jetty, it is an investment
of more than $200m. We have the
most modern machines, which are
German ones and they are not so very
cheap. Our market share is floating
between 47-50%,
and we are only
making one product.
With the four
producers, we have
about 4m tonnes
of capacity. We asked the government
to stop imports of cement in January
2016 and now we are self-sufficient
in cement production.
The market is not so huge [...]
we say the realistic number is 2.8m
tonnes with maybe 200,000tn of
flexibility for government projects.
So it means we have 1m tonnes
of overcapacity already. So that
is not enough because we are
planning to open our new cement
plant in Yaoundé with more or less
the same capacity, maybe 1m tonnes.How advanced is the Yaoundé
project?
It started about a year ago. But the
hardest part is to have officially the land
and to know who are the land owners.In this country, it is very tricky. For
the same land, you have maybe three
or four official owners [...]. With these
delays, we could be operational in late- Our competitors – or, as we say,
our colleagues – are planning their own
expansions, and in two years’ time
we could be having 7m tonnes or more.
The market is not growing so fast
and we think it could be something like
5-8% per year. The 1.5m tonnes is a
theoretical capacity and I would say we
are producing and selling 1.3m tonnes.
Cement producers have to import
raw materials, there is an energy
deficit and the market is already
saturated, so what is the strategy
of companies seeking to boost
production?
We have started to export already.
We have built one warehouse on the
border areas and we will have maybe
a couple of others. We have already
opened a couple of markets
in neighbouring countries.What is your client base like?
Today, we have three distribution
channels. The main one is the
wholesalers. We are a young company
and have not had time to develop [...]
and they represent 80% of sales.
The other channel is the constructors,
the project guys. We were handicapped
before because we did not have bulk
trucks. We have 200 of our own trucks
here that were imported from Nigeria,
representing 20% of all the distribution
we are making. And now we have our
first 10 bulk trucks. The third channel
is the export channel, and we started that
three weeks ago. [...] The ideal situation
would be 55-60% distributors and the
rest split by constructors and export.
Interview byReinnier Kazéin Douala
andMarshall Van Valen“We have more or less 700
people here and I’m proud
to say 99% are Cameroonians”Paavo Wiro
Country manager, Dangote Cement Cameroon“The hardest part is to
have the land”hastheexplorationrightstotheproperty.
Industry sources say that much of the
limestone is covered in water, making
the launch of operations complicated.
If more studies show that production is
feasible,itwouldlead tolowerpricesfor
locally produced cement.
PresidentPaulBiya’s government has
graduallybeenpushingthedevelopment
ofgrands projetslike dams,stadiums for
the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations football
tournamentandsocialhousingprojects,
whichshouldbeaboonfortheconstruc-
tionsector.DangoteCementCameroon
country manager Paavo Wiro tellsThe
Africa Report: “The country has a lot of
projectsbuttheyhavebeenvery,verylate
becausesomeprojectshavebeendelayed
seven or 10 years. And now it is coming
out progressively, so that is very good.”
While the government estimates
that construction will contribute 0.4%
to economic growth for each of the
next three years due to an uptick in
activity, finding responsible companies
continues to be difficult. In 2016, the
public works ministry blacklisted 122
firms from bidding for government
contracts for two years because of their
failure to respect contractual details.
Reinnier Kazéin Douala
andMarshall Van Valen
CAMEROON |COUNTRYFOCUS 57