By Andrew Green, Staff Reporter
A shipment of cement bound for Caribbean Cement Company Limited (CCCL), a subsidiary of Trinidadian parent company TCL, has been detained for quality testing by the Bureau of Standards.
The shipment is from the CCCL sister plant in Barbados, Arawak Cement, said CCCL public relations officer, Lystra Sharp, in an interview, yesterday. She said it was being imported in anticipation of a problem developing in one of Carib Cement's kilns.
Caribbean Cement tapped its sister company for the supply, but that now appears to have jumped the gun, Ms. Sharp said. The company's computerised preventative maintenance system detected likely problems in churning out cement from its number four kiln, but no glitches have occurred.
As a precautionary measure, it imported 4,397.16 tonnes of cement from Arawak under a "inter-company transfer" arrangement, "but we found we did not need it anymore," she said.
"As long as they obey the official rules and meet the regulations, and I am sure they have, then they have rights to do that," said Bureau of Standards information manager, Norman Hall.
Arawak and CCCL are subsidiary operations in the Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) Group. Caribbean Cement was purchased by TCL in April 1999 for approximately US$70 million.
The imported cement has been in the custody of the Bureau of Standards, which has up to 28 days to do testing to ensure that it is up to standard, Ms. Sharp said. The cement has been in the island since January 15.
"Once the testing is successful and there is compliance with the Jamaican labelling requirements, clearance will be granted," one informed source told the Financial Gleaner. He said, "that is the normal procedure."
But the product has to be sold in packaging showing where it was made and who the manufacturer was, the source stated.
"Once released by the standards agency, CCCL will likely use it to make up any future production shortfall," Ms. Sharp said.
The local cement market has been a hotly contested battlefield for some time which CCCL has jealously guarded. Then general manager and chief operating officer, Kevin Mahabir, said the dumping of cement from Thailand caused a 15 per cent fall in Caribbean Cement's market share and was impacting negatively on the company's operations in terms of fuel cost, selling prices, and volume.
Last year CCCL launched an anti-dumping suit against Mainland International. The manufacturer claimed that an import of 44,900 metric tonnes of cement from Thailand was being dumped on the local market by Mainland.
