Caribbean Cement Company Limited (CCCL) exported its first shipment of 5500t of bulk cement last Saturday under an arrangement with TCL Trading Limited, a related company that the Rockfort cement-maker said is part of its plan to expand into new regional markets.

In a report by the Jamaican Gleaner, CCCL marketing managing Alice Hyde said the company plans to ship cement abroad twice per month under the arrangement with TCL Trading, and is targeting foreign sales of 200,000t this year at about US$80-US$85/t.

Carib Cement last year sold over 30,000t of cement to export markets.

The new arrangement, targeted at Haiti, St Kitts, Suriname, Guyana and other possible markets in Central and South America, would, based on Hyde’s estimates, represent potential revenue of US$17m for the Kingston operation.

Carib Cement, a subsidiary of Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL), sells most of its products in Jamaica. A decline in the construction sector last year resulted in depleted sales, mostly felt at the end of last year when construction GDP declined by 11 per cent.

Volumes dropped from 813,448t to 748,723t YoY.

"So that is when we started the export thrust and looking for new markets and pushing out based on what was happening in the local market," said Hyde.