Ce­mex TCL Group’s Ja­maican sub­sidiary, Caribbean Ce­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (CC­CL) will spend US$40 mil­lion in the com­ing months to in­crease its ce­ment ca­pac­i­ty by up to 30 per cent.

The an­nounce­ment was made by Ce­mex CEO Fer­nan­do Gon­za­lez at a cer­e­mo­ny to break ground for the project dur­ing his re­cent vis­it to Ja­maica.

Al­so in at­ten­dance was Ja­maica’s Prime Min­is­ter, An­drew Hol­ness.

A state­ment from the com­pa­ny said Ce­mex was in the fi­nal stages of the en­gi­neer­ing phase and would be ob­tain­ing per­mits from lo­cal au­thor­i­ties to be­gin con­struc­tion.

“Very soon we will be­gin to pro­cure equip­ment need­ed for this ini­tial phase of the project that will not on­ly ex­pand our ca­pac­i­ty, but al­so al­low us to op­ti­mise our heat con­sump­tion in the man­u­fac­tur­ing process and there­fore re­duce the car­bon foot­print of our fa­cil­i­ty in Ja­maica,” Gon­za­lez said.

This in­crease in ca­pac­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by the sec­ond half of 2024 and will strength­en the self-suf­fi­cien­cy of the na­tion­al ce­ment in­dus­try, while set­ting the ba­sis to ex­port in the re­gion, Ce­mex added.

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the Ce­mex TCL Group, Fran­cis­co Aguil­era, not­ed this ex­pan­sion rep­re­sents the com­mit­ment of the com­pa­ny to sat­is­fy the needs of its cus­tomers and to con­tribute to the ro­bust growth of the Caribbean.

“Carib Ce­ment has been an in­te­gral part of Caribbean growth and de­vel­op­ment for the past 70 years and has been play­ing its role in en­sur­ing that the vi­tal con­struc­tion sec­tor con­tin­ues to be sup­port­ed in Ja­maica.

“This in­vest­ment in Ja­maica is al­so a true tes­ta­ment of the Ce­mex TCL Group’s com­mit­ment to the re­gion,” he said.

TCL Group chair­man, David In­gle­field said the com­pa­ny will con­tin­ue to in­vest in its op­er­a­tions across the Caribbean to build a bet­ter fu­ture for the peo­ple of the re­gion.

“We will con­tin­ue to in­vest sig­nif­i­cant­ly in key ar­eas to im­prove plant ef­fi­cien­cy, en­sur­ing com­pet­i­tive­ness and re­li­a­bil­i­ty of ce­ment sup­ply to our en­tire re­gion, as well as achieve­ment of best prac­tices in en­vi­ron­men­tal, so­cial, and eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples. We will al­so in­vest in our peo­ple, our most im­por­tant as­set, with safe­ty and prod­uct qual­i­ty be­ing pri­or­i­ties for us,” he added.