Those of you who do not appreciate what GEJ has done, please answer this.

Have you ever had a leader who had the presence of mind to notice that the people could no longer build due to increase in cement prices?

And to those asking him to allow cement import to crash the market price by force.

Are you not the same people that will say he is not encouraging local industries?

what do you people want sef.

kalokalo:


The problem is that lazy traders/ importers are not interested in manufacturing cement locally. We have limestone in 21 out of 36 states in Nigeria. Why should we allow folks to go all the way to china to import dust when the raw materials to make that dust is abundant in our backyard?

The FG has had a backward integration policy since 2001 and it was that only people who invested in local cement manufacturing would be allowed to import. It was what forced Dangote and Flour Mills (UNICEM)  to become local cement manufacturers and even expand. If anyone has the millions of $$ to import, they should invest that money in building a local cement plants. Otherwise, they should NOT be allowed to import!!

They want to destroy our local cement industry the same way they destroyed our local textile industry by flooding the country with cheap substandard imports from china. Tens of thousands of jobs has been lost because of this . The FG has committed to banning cement imports by 2013 and existing manufacturers are spending billions in capacity expansion and building greenfield plants e.g Ibeshe, Lakatabu, Okpella.

It would be grossly unfair to bait manufacturers into borrowing billions of dollars to set up new plants and expand only to now open the floodgates for importers to bring in cheaper products. Competition will only be fair when those importers with money set up their own cement plants in Nigeria and compete with existing manufacturers.

can you tell us how much a cement licence cost. Small and medium scale entrepreneurs cannot compete in an environment where licences to start up business are guarded.However, anybody can import. I am all for local industry, but it should be done the right way. When you require businesses to pay exorbitant fees and bribes, or sometimes completely deny licences to new entrys (in the case of Nigeria); then we would have given big corporations an unfair advantage. Note Big companies already have the advantage of economy of scales. Thats one of their major tools of monopoly. Giving them the tool of monopoly of licences is whats making Nigeria's case very different from whats obtainable elsewhere.

ebere1712:

can you tell us how much a cement licence cost. Small and medium scale entrepreneurs cannot compete in an environment where licences to start up business are guarded.However, anybody can import. I am all for local industry, but it should be done the right way. When you require businesses to pay exorbitant fees and bribes, or sometimes completely deny licences to new entrys (in the case of Nigeria); then we would have given big corporations an unfair advantage. Note Big companies already have the advantage of economy of scales. Thats one of their major tools of monopoly. Giving them the tool of monopoly of licences is whats making Nigeria's case very different from whats obtainable elsewhere.

You don't need a license to set up a local cement plant. You only need a license to import cement. AVA cement just opened a mini cement plant in Ogun state. It cost as little as 20 million dollars. As a matter of fact there are lots of FG incentives for those who want to set up their own cement plants e.g 5 year tax holiday, zero percent duty on capital equipment and plant machinery. direct allocation of LPFO from NNPC etc. All you need do is acquire land with limestone deposit, perform your environmental impact assessment and set up shop

The only "difficulty" is the long gestation period of your plant which is not what importers/traders want to wait out. They prefer buying and selling with quick turnover.

hum, still high

Quote from: ebere1712 on Today at 01:11:37 AM
can you tell us how much a cement licence cost. Small and medium scale entrepreneurs cannot compete in an environment where licences to start up business are guarded.However, anybody can import. I am all for local industry, but it should be done the right way. When you require businesses to pay exorbitant fees and bribes, or sometimes completely deny licences to new entrys (in the case of Nigeria); then we would have given big corporations an unfair advantage. Note Big companies already have the advantage of economy of scales. Thats one of their major tools of monopoly. Giving them the tool of monopoly of licences is whats making Nigeria's case very different from whats obtainable elsewhere.

You don't need a license to set up a local cement plant. You only need a license to import cement. AVA cement just opened a mini cement plant in Ogun state. It cost as little as 20 million dollars. As a matter of fact there are lots of FG incentives for those who want to set up their own cement plants e.g 5 year tax holiday, zero percent duty on capital equipment and plant machinery. direct allocation of LPFO from NNPC etc. All you need do is acquire land with limestone deposit, perform your environmental impact assessment and set up shop

The only "difficulty" is the long gestation period of your plant which is not what importers/traders want to wait out. They prefer buying selling with quick turnover.

Well there is also the simple fact that most of the cost of producing cement is power, limestone, bit of gypsum and lots and lots of heat is what produces cement, cost of that power in Nigeria today?? that's the big cost and partly explains why locally produced cement is so expensive

dasa:

Those of you who do not appreciate what GEJ has done, please answer this.

Have you ever had a leader who had the presence of mind to notice that the people could no longer build due to increase in cement prices?

And to those asking him to allow cement import to crash the market price by force.

Are you not the same people that will say he is not encouraging local industries?

what do you people want sef.

What has he done?

The guy has not done nothing; let him reduce the price to like N700 and also reduce the price of petrol. Kerosene is N136 from the pump here in Port Harcourt so what are we talking about? Nigerians most of us just like suffering and smiling.

Wow! Did I just see that Chris Okotie has a company that takes care of his investments? So much money from being a pastor.

when GEJ gave the order, critics said it was out of place, now we are seing the effect. We really have terrible ppl trying to bury our economy by profiteering as the president writely observed.

Actually the monopoly can be broken by building new plants around the states, eg revive Nkalagu Cement factory that is now covered by bush.

Nkalagu http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

GEJ is really working. Let it keep slashing down

kalokalo:

You don't need a license to set up a local cement plant. You only need a license to import cement. AVA cement just opened a mini cement plant in Ogun state. It cost as little as 20 million dollars. As a matter of fact there are lots of FG incentives for those who want to set up their own cement plants e.g 5 year tax holiday, zero percent duty on capital equipment and plant machinery. direct allocation of LPFO from NNPC etc. All you need do is acquire land with limestone deposit, perform your environmental impact assessment and set up shop

The only "difficulty" is the long gestation period of your plant which is not what importers/traders want to wait out. They prefer buying selling with quick turnover.

Thank you for sound reasoning. I don't know exactly what Nigerians want. To boost their economy or that of China. China did not get to where it is by imports. America is where it is today by buying much more than it makes. When did Lafarge take over from Wapco. When did Dangote take over BCC and when did Obajana come on stream. When did Orascom complete Unicem in Calabar. All these plants came on line in the last ten to twelve years. Unicem train two is well underway, Dangote is expanding. Same thing for Lafarge. Guys you have to hand it to these fellows. It is not easy for private investors to build these multi-billion naira plants in such a short period of time with very little help from the economy, from banks and from the capital market. We should make up our minds. If we want to industrialize we must bite the bullet and if choose to be an importer nation we should just go ahead. But in a weak and unorganized economy such as ours you cannot effectively have both.

If those importers have the resources to flood the market with a million tonnes a year what stops them from investing in manufacturing They won't because they are lazy and risk averse. Such are our champions. Cash and carry. What is the difference between them and those who crush our local refining so they can import petroleum products. Or is crude oil more abundant than limestone. Very soon this group of importers will form their own cartel. Give them a metre and they'd take a mile and when our foreign currency reserves head south there should be no reason to complain whatsoever.

Dangote is probably price gouging but what you do here is to bring the weight of the law against him and not throw the baby out with the bath water. No doubt we have a massive housing gap brought about by our run away population (which no one cares to address). Our personal development and individual aspirations are way ahead of of our collective abilities. We simply cannot house ourselves. That is the reason we want cheap this, cheap that. But what is most upsetting is that we cannot even have the patience to work towards having these things. We want everything now and are willing to lie down with whoever can provide them.

My mum used to say this when we were the lazy kids we were. Whatever you cannot do for yourself you will pay dearly for someone else to do it for you. Imports may seem cheap today. Tomorrow when China sends the prices up tell me who you will fall back on. Diesel is sky high, kerosine is on the moon and $ 4.00 PMS is not far away. Let us keep on importing.

namdo:

when GEJ gave the order, critics said it was out of place, now we are seing the effect. We really have terrible ppl trying to bury our economy by profiteering as the president writely observed.

Actually the monopoly can be broken by building new plants around the states, eg revive Nkalagu Cement factory that is now covered by bush.

Nkalagu http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

don't you people get it, the price of cement goes down during rainy season, the govt can not order the price of cement to go down!!

who should build new plants? the president? you think people are ready to build plants when theres no electricity?
the Dangote you guys are blaming is producing his own electricity

If some countries like Indian,China and Liberia can sell below a 1000 naira why can,t we sell below the 1000 naira as well.Nigeria as a country must stand on her feet now and walk as a sovereign nation.A enough of crawling!

i beg,the price of cement did not go down because GEJ ordered the price of cement to go down but it goes down because of the rainy season.