THE Tanzania Portland Cement Plc (Twiga) has posted a pre-tax increase of 10.2 per cent in this year’s first half, thanks to production cost control measures.
The oldest cement manufacturer in the country’s financial statement shows that the pre-tax profit increased to 72.02bn/- in the first six months of the year from 65.3bn/- raked in a similar period last year.
Twiga Chairman, Mr Hakaan Gurdal said in a published statement yesterday that despite the cement demand growing slowly this year, the company will continue delivering strong operation results, aiming higher in the future.
“Despite the cement demand growing slowly this year, we are optimistic about the second half of the year, Twiga will continue to work on improving efficiency and operating performance,” the chairman said.
Additionally, the Dar es Salaam-based cement firm posted a net profit increase of 6.3 per cent to 50bn/- compared to the 47.05bn/- of the first six months last year.
The listed firm on Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) also said the profitability was attributed, not only to cost-cutting measures but also increase in revenue. Twiga was trading 4,120/- by yesterday-noon.
The statement showed that the revenue went up by 8.0 per cent to 246.28bn/- from 227.51bn/-, however over half was chewed up by the cost of sales.
“This increase is mainly due to the process improvement and cost control in our production. The company has experienced a rather stable growth of sales volume and revenue compared to the same period in 2022,” Mr Gurdal said.
During the period under the review, Twiga over tripled the net gain from foreign currency translation to 3.97bn/- from 1.05bn/-.
“On top of the operational excellence, the company continued to improve in the area of health and safety, with zero loss of time to injury recorded in 2023,” the chairman said.
Twiga is one of the large cement manufacturers in the country, producing three brands of Portland cement -Twiga Ordinary, Twiga Plus+ and Twiga Extra. The first bag of cement was produced in 1966 and in 2014, the factory expanded and increased its manufacturing capacity to 2,000,000 tonnes per year.
