Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce says that some of the companies demanding a readjustment in the sale price of cement in the south of the country are not even in the cement industry, Rádio Moçambique reports.
This is one of the preliminary conclusions of the government investigation into the demand by some cement manufacturing companies that Dugogo Cimentos be forced to increase its cement sales price.
Producers claim that Dugongo is the only clinker producer in the country and therefore puts others in a state of dependency, as they do not have this component for their production units.
But Minister of Industry and Commerce, Carlos Mesquita, says some companies do not quality to be included in the cement industry class.
“Not all of them are cement plants. There are classes,” said Minister Mesquita. “There are full-cycle cement plants, such as Dugongo, for example, which extracts limestone, processes it for clinker, produces cement and sells it,” he explained.
“Then there are companies that take the process half-way. They import or buy the clinker and then move forward,” he said. Finally, “There are some, which may turn out to be those that they say have closed their doors, which buy the finished product [cement] here and there and then mix it and are also qualified as cement plants. They are not. We must use the right terminology,” he stressed.
” So, this is all being analysed in depth because we want our industries to thrive within a competitive environment, for the development of this country. And we see the impact that prices are having today. Activity is created; we have more masons, more works are taking place, it has a multiplier effect. This is what we want to happen, not only in cement but in other industries,” Minister Mesquita said.
Furthermore, the minister added, there is plenty of limestone – the raw material for producing clinker – in Mozambique, begging the question, why no company before Dugongo had taken it upon themselves to produce clinker.
