Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC) would start importing cement within weeks to meet surging demand from South African construction companies while increasing its own capacity, it said yesterday.
PPC would buy "several million bags" of cement from an international company over two years and expected to make no profit on the imports, it said in a statement to the JSE. It would do its best "to provide the effective and efficient delivery of quality cement for construction and infrastructure projects", said chief executive John Gomersall. PPC shares fell 0.83 percent to R357.
The company said cement sales had grown by 50 percent from 9.6 million tons in 2002 to a forecast 13 million tons this year. - Bloomberg