Financial Times

Tokyo Cement in $30m expansion plan
Tokyo Cement Company has announced plans to invest another $30 million in the next 2-3 years to expand production, build a power plant and buy a third ship.

The company, the sole cement manufacturer listed on the Colombo bourse, has invested $60 million since the inception of the business 23 years ago as a joint venture between Japan’s Mitsui Mining Company and St. Anthony's Consolidated Ltd.

Group turnover increased by Rs 620 million to nearly Rs 6 billion in the financial year ended March 31, 2005 but after tax profit fell to Rs 298 million from Rs 314 million because of difficult operating conditions.

Company chairman A. Y. S. Gnanam, in his annual report to shareholders, repeated his call for a national policy on the cement and construction sector, saying he regrets the failure by successive governments to draw up one.
“The government needs to recognise and support socially responsible and ethical local companies and discourage those be it multinational, joint venture or local firms, whose sole motive is merely profiteering,” Gnanam said.

“Our past investments and those planned for the future are on the belief of consistency in policy, due recognition and business prospects.” The group is building a new energy efficient cement plant under the name Hinode Cement Company Lanka, a BOI project, with an installed capacity of 300,000 tonnes that will increase total annual production capacity to 1.2 million tonnes. This is to be completed by March 2007.

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