makes commodity and specialty chromium products useful in the business of
paints and coatings such as chromic acid,
chromic oxide, sodium chromate and
chrome hydrate.
In the company’s latest performance
report, the CEO Paul Waterman said
Elementis is “implementing price increas-
es to protect our margins.”
He said at the end of 2016 the price of
raw materials relied on by Elementis rose
significantly impacting on the production
of the company’s variety of rheology mod-
ifiers and specialty additives for the deco-
rative and industrial paints and coatings.
South Africa’s Beckers Group, a subsid-
iary of the Sweden-based Lindéngruppen
AB, which produces industrial coatings,
“Currently we import products for
sale in East Africa but we are about to
conclude negotiations on a partnership
with a few local companies and which
we think would raise our profile in this
region’s market,” said Godfrey Somo,
Beckers sales and marketing representa-
tive for East Africa.
He said being a South Africa ex-
porter of paints and coatings formula-
tion products, “we have been so much
disadvantaged because South Africa is
not a member of Comesa that allows
exemption of taxes on our imports. So
our products are fairly high priced to ca-
ter for the import taxes.”
“Discussions are ongoing to have
South Africa admitted as a member of
Comesa and we think if this happens then
it would boost our position in the East
African market although we are slowly
shifting to provision of technical services
as opposed to importation and sale of
products,” he said.
“Our focus now is to get a few partners in East Africa who would handle the
export/import part of the partnership as
Becker uses its more than 150 years’ experience to scale up technical services in
the paints and coatings industry related
segment,” said Somo.
Germany-based dispersion systems
manufacturer Vma Getzmann GbmH
looks to exploit its reputation as a supplier of quality equipment for the paints and
coatings industry to sustain its market
share in Africa despite some competition
from competitors especially from Asia.
“Our brand is associated with quality
and we intend to sustain the reputation by
supplying high quality innovative equipment and strengthening the relationship
with existing users of our products,” said
Mathias Lehnert, the company’s sales director for Africa.
VMA, which manufactures Dispermat
and Torusmill that the company says “are
highly efficient dissolvers, beadmills and
basket mills” hopes to sustain its market
position by offering not only latest technology equipment but also quality after
sales service.
“Some of our competitors have supplied equipment that breaks down in
under one year and this has been an advantage to VMA because our products
have a life span of more than 25 years
and we are promising customers they
will need servicing of the equipment
at least after three years,” said David
Karanja, managing director of Crane
Consulting House, that has partnered
with VMA in Kenya.
Subsequent EACC events will henceforth be held after every two years according to Kieran Proverbs dmg events
marketing manager. “Our next EACC
will be held in 2019,” said Proverbs. CW
“With the region thriving as the sub-
Saharan middle class grows, there has never
been a better opportunity for this market
sector to invest in the future of this area...”
