Wednesday, August 18, 2010

GHANA: Bright Future for Cement Industry

Kumasi — The country's cement industry is expected to grow by eight percent every year for the next 20 years.

This is because demand for cement in the country is expected to increase as a result of increasing population and expansion of infrastructure.

The acting Commercial Director of GHACEM, Philip Archer disclosed this at the opening ceremony of a training workshop for block-makers in Kumasi.

As part of plans to upgrade the knowledge of block-makers, GHACEM, a leading cement producer in the country is organizing training workshop for players in the industry.

Since the programme started about six months ago, the company has trained a total number of 460 block-makers in the Greater-Accra and Eastern regions.

In the Ashanti region, the cement company is planning to train not less than 300 block-makers within a period of six months.

The selected block-makers would be taken through topics such as the selection of materials and sand, appropriate quantity of water and the best mixing techniques, among others.

In his opening address, Mr. Archer emphasized that prospects in the country's cement industry look brighter, particularly with the coming on board of the STX Korea deal.

He revealed that 900 million bags of cement would be needed for the construction of 200,000 housing units across the country.

Mr. Archer explained that his outfit decided to organize the training workshop for the block-makers because the company realized that their activities were central to its existence.

He announced that the company would train about 750 block-layers in the southern sector of the country by the end of the year, stressing that they would later focus on the three northern regions.

The acting commercial director noted that GHACEM donates 30,000 bags of cement every year to help construct schools, hospitals and other community initiated programmes as part of its corporate social responsibility.

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