UAE firms build Sudan cement plants

Investors from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are building seven cement factories in Sudan which together will produce eight million tonnes per year.

The move will help meet soaring demand in the country where many construction projects – some launched by investors from the UAE and other GCC countries – are under way. Currently Sudan produces less than one million tonnes per year and, like other African countries, imports additional supplies.

"Sudan has only two big cement factories and there is huge shortage," Walid Badr, economic research officer at the Sudan Embassy in Abu Dhabi, told Emirates Business. "Seven new cement factories are coming up in the northern part of Sudan, a region with sufficient quantities of the required raw materials – limestone and cement-grade marble. These will address the cement shortage and help UAE firms procure enough cement for their projects in Sudan."

Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank has signed a $130 million (Dh478m) loan facility for Al Takamal, the cement manufacturing arm of Egypt's ASEC Holding, to build a plant in Sudan with a production capacity of 1.5 million tonnes. It is being promoted by Citadel Capital and a group of regional investors and will start production by the end of 2009.

Arab investors, including one from the UAE, are participating in the privatisation of Atbara Cement Corporation, a production plant at Atbara. The company is currently expanding its production capacity to meet the growing cement demand for big infrastructure projects, housing, schools, industries, dams and power projects.

A source at Dubai's National Cement Company said company officials were currently in Sudan to oversee work on a new plant. National Cement has set up the Berber Cement Company along with Abu Dhabi's National Holding Company, Saudi Arabia's Arab Investment Company, the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector and two Sudanese companies – Hi Tech Group and Danfodio Commercial and Contracting Company.

The investment cost for cement production in Sudan is between $600 and $700 per tonne. Part of the output from the new factories could be exported to the UAE.

The surge in oil price has pushed up the cost of transporting cement but Sudan has huge reserves of raw materials close to major ports and railway networks.

UAE investors are participating in a bid to build the $2.5 billion Khartoum International Airport project, a government and office complex and a free trade zone.

Reports suggest that the UAE is the second largest investor in Sudan after China.

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