Lafarge’s principal objective in buying Ecuadorian cement maker Selva Alegre is to increase sales volumes from 640,000t to 1.0Mt annually in five years, reported newspaper El Universo.  Lafarge has set aside investment of US$40m for optimisation and modernization projects to be carried out at the Ecuadorian company.  Lafarge bought 99 per cent of Selva Alegre for US$130m.  Selva Alegre is ranked number two in Ecuador with a 20 per cent market share and has 170 workers, which despite the changes will continue working under the same labor conditions.