Tanzania Portland Cement Company (TPCC) profit has gone up by three per cent to 56.2bn/- despite depreciation of the shilling that had an impact on fuel, spares and quarry services.
TPPC, trading on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) as Twiga cement, said the profit in 2015 was realised, thanks to stable cement demand that is estimated to grow in the country at about seven per cent.
According to the statement, profitability was also attributed to the cement firm capacity increase last year thus pushing up sales volume by 22 per cent.
“TPCC is well placed to meet this growing demand after investing in expansion of its capacity, together with rehabilitation of the old clinker line,” the statement said.
The cement demand in the country and in the East Africa bloc has been growing steadily over the last years, prompting Twiga cement to invest on expansion. The impact of shilling depreciation that sunk by 23 per cent, according to Twiga cement, was offset through efficient variable cost management and fixed cost reduction.
Twiga announced a dividend of 306/- a share, which represents an increase of 14.6 per cent compared to 267/- per stock of 2014. The proposed dividend includes two interim of 95/- and 111/- per share paid last October and this February respectively.
Despite increasing dividend amount the firm stock since January trades under bearish mode. The share price dropped 14.9 per cent to 2,700/- to yesterday. Last year the company targeted to produce 1.5 million tonnes up from 1.4 million tonnes produced in 2014.
The increased capacity follows last year’s commissioning of a new 700,000 tonne- production line.
