Chinese Company Planning to Establish Nation's Largest Cement Factory

CH Clinker Manufacturing PLC, a Chinese private company, is setting up what will become one of the biggest cement factory in the country, it was learnt.

Registered with a three billion birr capital at the Ethiopian Investment Agency, the Chinese company is building the cement plant in Oromia region, northern Shoa, at a site where the raw material for cement production is abundantly available.

The Chinese company, along with Lafarge, a France-based, world leading cement maker which is also on its way to build a cement factory here at a site near to the Chinese company, is presently building a 12-km access road to and from the plant it will set up at the site.

According to its plan, the cement plant the Chinese company will set up will have an installed capacity of producing 10,000 tonnes per day, an amount four times the daily output of the country’s largest cement producer, Mugher Cement Enterprise.

CH Clinker Manufacturing PLC will set up the plant at a 40-ha plot of land it secured in northern Shoa.

When it starts production, the company will be producing clinkers both for the domestic market and export, according to the company's plan.

Presently, there are over a dozen of foreign and local companies registered to set up cement plant in the country, although only about three of them have started implementing their respective projects.

By Hayal Alemayehu - Reporter