Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambique’s Dugongo Cimentos will invest US$200 million (€183 million) in a second plant in Nampula province, with a capacity to produce two million tonnes of cement per year, the company, which is owned by Chinese investors, announced on Tuesday.
The cement company’s new industrial complex, which joins the one it operates south of Maputo, will be located on a 50-hectare area in the municipality of Nacala (Nampula), and the first stone was laid on Monday, with construction expected to take 18 months.
According to a source from the cement company, the unit it is building in Nampula province will also have the capacity to produce 1.8 million tonnes of clinker and will generate 600 direct jobs.
Mozambique Dungongo Cimentos is owned by the Mozambican business groups SPI and China’s West China Cement Limited (WCC). SPI is an entity that has been associated by research institutions with the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) and holds a vast business portfolio, a situation that the ruling party has never commented on.
At the plant located in the Matutuine district, 70 kilometres from Maputo city, the group already has a production capacity of two million tonnes of cement per year.
Soon after entering the market in May 2021, Dugongo charged cement prices that were much lower than those applied in the market, leading other operators to accuse the company of disloyalty and of causing the bankruptcy of other cement companies and labour layoffs in the sector.
After months of activity and with very low prices, the company raised the cost of cement to levels close to what was practised by the cement plants forced to close.
On 12 September 2022, the cement company said that it would pay the 20.5 million meticais (€321,000) penalty then imposed for anti-competitive practices.
The fine was issued by the Competition Regulatory Authority on the grounds that Dugongo failed to respond to questions from the regulator on “methodologies for calculating sales prices” raised by “indications of anti-competitive practices in the construction cement sector”.
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