KOTA KINABALU: Cement Industries Sabah Sdn Bhd (CIS) has assured developers in the housing and construction industry that the problem with the inadequate supply of cement in Sabah has been resolved.
“The problem will not recur until end of the year because we now have sufficient cement supplies, so contractors and developers should not worry about being unable to get an supply from CIS,” said CIS General Manager, Mr Robert M C Chung.
Robert said both the State and Federal authorities had been informed last month that the cement supplies in Sabah would be back to normal after the Hari Raya festivities.
“In fact it is already back to normal now. So the shortage of cement in Sabah is already over,” he told reporters after briefing the central committee members of the Sabah Builders Association (SBA) on the cement supply situation in the State at his office in Sepanggar yesterday. All major districts in Sabah now have adequate supplies of the building material and in Sandakan, there is in fact a surplus of supply, according to Robert.
“The situation is back to normal except for Tawau as the shipment of cement for the district will only arrive next month,” he said.
He also said CIS’s mill could produce up to 800,000 tons of cement this year but the demand is expected to reach 1.2 million tons by the end of the year.
“So to make up for the balance, we have to import from Peninsular Malaysia and other neighboring countries like Indonesia, Thailand and The Philippines,” he said.
For November and December, CIS has already arranged to import more cement to keep up with the market demand, Robert said.
He said contractors and developers all over the state need a total of about 100,000 tons of cement per month.
“For example, Tawau requires about 15,000 tons per month, Sandakan(13,000) Lahad Datu (11,000) Labuan (5,000)and the West Coast (60,000).
On the yellowish colour detected in the cement that was raised by the SBA central committee members, Robert said it was not true.
“There is no yellowish colour in the cement; the colour is gray. But we will investigate the matter,” he added.
At the briefing, the association was led by its president, Tsen Kui Lin and included its central committee members Elizabeth Chung, Lou Chi Nam, Chung Kok Hiew, Wong Chun Lin, Chong Kui Kap and Liau Sin Loh.
Robert also assured consumers of the quality of imported cement as the building material had already been inspected.
He said CIS chose to import cement from Asean countries because the import tax imposed on the building material was only five percent, compared to imports from Europe in which the tax is very high.
Meanwhile, Tsen said SBA was happy with Robert's assurance on the cement supply situation, adding that the supply would be increased to 1.2 million tons by the end of his year.
"This is good news to the construction industy because the cement shortage in the past few months has created a lot of problems which affected our costs and financial planning and caused delay in work schedules," he said.
He said SBA fully understood the problem faced by CIS and is grateful for all the steps that had been taken to resolve the shortage.
"We only want them to maintain their quality and supply as different suppliers including those from Asean countries produce cement of different quality," he added.
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