Oumar Tembely, the director and resident head of mission of the West African Development Bank (BOAD) in Côte d'Ivoire, led a delegation on Saturday to see the progress being made in its investment of Diamond Cement's new grinding station, located 40km from Abidjan, on the road leading to Adzopé.

The construction of the Anyama plant started in January 2015. Currently, the rate of completion of work is estimated at 85 per cent. The end of the construction, which currently employs around 200 works, is scheduled for March 2017. "The first bag of cement should fall in April 2017," announced Mr Tembely.

According to the head of mission, the grinding plant will produce 500,000tpa of cement. As there are no known limestone reserves in the country, the construction of a integrated cement plant was not possible.

For Oumar Tembely, this project is important for both Côte d'Ivoire and the development bank common to the eight WAEMU member states. "In our strategic plan 2015-19, everything that is industrial unit is given priority in our funding. That is why the BOAD has decided to accompany this initiative, and we are closely following the implementation of this project," he said.