A Chinese firm has invested $50 million in a Fibre Cement Boards factory in Abuja to help boost Nigeria’s housing construction and manufacturing.
New Material Nigeria Ltd, a company which is part of the Sinoma/CNBM group, a fortune 500 company with headquarters in Beijing, China, now manufactures Fibre Cement Board, innovative building material in Nigeria.
The managing director of the company, Jackie Hui said New Material Nigeria Ltd, recently opened its factory in Abuja, its first outside China and is already producing Fibre Cement Boards of global standards.
Cement Fibre Boards are composite boards made of cement, fibres and sand used in external walls and internal partitioning.
Speaking 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, this building, maybe we spend one year, two years to finish this building but using our Fibre Cement Board for partition, you can complete all the building in three months. 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”
The company premises had the most up-to-date measures for industrial safety and had passed fire safety tests by the Federal Fire Service. With industrial equipment and an installed production capacity of 5 million square meters of Fibre Cement Boards per year, the factory employs 119 Nigerians at various levels.
Hui said the factory also sources its raw materials locally. “We source locally. That’s why we have the confidence to grow and stay in Nigeria. There is a source for one of our materials, paper pulp, in Kano. For the cement, we use Lafarge, Dangote and Bua. The other is quartz sand, and stones, which we source all locally.”
Nigeria’s housing sector has a deficit of at least 20m units and experts have suggested several cost-effective measures aimed at bridging the gap. With the superior emphasis on strength, sound and fireproofing qualities, the local demand for Fibre Cement Boards in Nigeria has spiked.