The Nigeria housing construction and manufacturing sector has received a big boost as fibre cement board, an innovative building material, is now manufactured in the country by the New Material Nigeria Company Limited, a firm which is part of the SINOMA/CNBM Group, a 500 company with headquarters in Beijing, China.
Addressing journalists at the ongoing 16th Abuja International Housing Show, the Managing Director of the company, Mr Jackie Dai Hui said New Material Nigeria Limited, recently opened its factory in Kuje area of Abuja, its first outside China and is already producing fibre cement boards of global standards.
On the cost benefits of using fibre cement boards, Hui said it saves material and manpower costs and reflects positively on the duration of project delivery.
“You save cost. For example, in housing delivery, maybe you spend one year, two years to finish your project but using our fibre cement board for partitioning , you can complete your project in few months with better quality. You save the human resource, you save the cement, you save the block and most importantly, you protect the environment. It’s green and better than block,” he explained.
“With industrial equipment and an installed production capacity of 5 million square meters of fibre cement boards per year, the factory he noted employs over 120 Nigerians at various levels.
Dai Hui said the factory also sources its raw materials locally, “hence, we are more Nigerian also because others import their raw materials”.
“Yeah, we source locally. That’s why we have the confidence to grow and stay in Nigeria. For instance, few months ago we were able to locate a source for one of our materials, paper pulp, from Kano. For the cement, we use Lafarge, Dangote and Bua. The others are quartz sand, and stones, which we source locally.”
Nigeria’s housing sector has a deficit of at least 20 million units and experts have suggested several cost-effective measures aimed at bridging the gap. With a superior emphasis on strength, sound and fireproofing qualities, the local demand for fibre cement boards in Nigeria has spiked.
Also expressing a desire to be part of Nigeria’s export-oriented industrial development, Dai Hui said the future is bright as the company plans to use Nigeria as a manufacturing hub for the export of fibre cement boards to the entire West African region.
