CARIBBEAN Cement Company (CCC) says that bags of cement it delivered on pallets last week to a warehouse owned by E&R Hardware in Portmore, St Catherine, was manufactured at its plant in Jamaica and not in Trinidad as was being speculated by some members of the building industry.

The cement was packaged in bags bearing the mark of Trinidad Cement Limited – the parent of Carib Cement – which led to speculation within the industry that the Jamaican plant was resorting to importing cement in order to meet the demand from the local market.

But on Friday, Carib Cement’s marketing manage, Alice Hyde, debunked that rumour, saying that the bags were supplied by Trinidad Cement to allow the plant in Jamaica to export cement to a customer in Guyana on its behalf, because of its inability to meet the demand of that market from the Trinidadian plant which had to be running at full capacity.

“It is cement that was manufactured here in Jamaica, put into TCL export bags to be exported to the Caricom region,” said Hyde. “We do that on occasion when TCL is not able to facilitate shipments.”

Hyde said that Carib Cement had 11,000 extra bags from the Guyana order and sold it for use by a block maker. She said that TCL wanted to maintain the branding for the product to Guyana, and therefore supplied the bags to its subsidiary in Jamaica.

The issue of what some thought to have been the importing of cement by Carib Cement is explosive because of the ongoing controversy surrounding the recent aborted attempt by the Government to raise the duty on imported non-Caricom cement from 15 per cent to 50 per cent. The Government, which said it wanted to protect the local manufacturer, backed down after an outcry from some members of the industry who argued that the high duty would create a monopoly industry and ultimately hurt the local construction sector.

It also fed into the claims by some importers that Carib Cement was not always able to produce enough of the product to meet local demand, and on occasion resorted to importing – which industry players say indicate that there was indeed room in the local market for other imported brands.

Hyde said on Friday that Carib Cement was “entering into a business arrangement with a Portmore customer to utilize his warehouse as a Carib Cement depot”.