Mozambique's Dugongo Cimentos says it is willing to lower the price of cement if other factories and the government reach an agreement. Regarding the cabotage service, the company believes that it is here to stay and that it is viable to use the sea.

The information was provided by the newspaper "The Country", which points out that the first Mozambique Dugongo Cimentos cabotage ship, carrying 10,000 tons of cement, which left Maputo on April 11, is already in Nacala unloading the goods.

The cement is destined exclusively for the Mozambique Dugongo Cimentos plant, which has been under construction since last year in Nacala. This is the company's second cement plant, with more capacity than the Matutuíne plant in Maputo.

Work on the new cement plant in Nacala is at 35% and is expected to start up later this year. Dugongo says it is open to offering a lower cement price, but everything depends on the other competing plants and the government's will.

Following the protests that the country has witnessed since last October, caused by the announcement of the election results and the high cost of living, Dugongo Cimentos made it known in February that an arbitrary reduction in the price of cement could affect normal production and supply in the market, stressing that the establishment of the cost is influenced by multiple factors, which cannot be explained and decided by a single data or number.

In a statement, the company's managers explained that cement production is a complex industrial process with costly components such as limestone, diesel, coal, equipment and imported raw materials.

"To illustrate, the cost of coal increased from 3840 meticais/tonne in 2021 to 6450 meticais/tonne, and the price of diesel increased from 47 meticais/liter in 2021 to 91 meticais/liter," the organization described.

The demonstrators, in various parts of the country, under the leadership of former presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, demanded that the bag of cement be sold below 300 meticais, a stance that has been disrupting the sale of the product. According to them, the price of the product in South Africa is lower than on the domestic market.

In this regard, the company explained that "the export price to South Africa is below the cost of production, not with the aim of making a profit, but to obtain the foreign currency needed to pay for fuel and imported raw materials".

"Resources such as coal in Mozambique are mainly concentrated in Tete province and, due to insufficient infrastructure and the long distance, the cost of transportation to Maputo is higher than importing from South Africa. We therefore need to resort to limited exports in order to obtain foreign currency and maintain production," he argued.

(Photo DR)