Fibre cement maker plans more exports

By Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul
The Nation
Published on October 21, 2008

Middle East targeted to offset slowdown in domestic, Asian sales

Siam FibreCement expected to record total sales revenue of Bt5.6 billion this year, short of its target of Bt6 billion, due mainly to the prolonged economic slowdown.

Marketing division manager Thongchai Sopon said the leading fibrecement producer under the "Elephant" brand plans to export to new markets such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and South Africa next year in a bid to escape the economic crisis in Asia and the murky domes¬tic market.

Currently, 85 per cent of its sales revenue are from the local market and the remain¬ing 15 per cent from exports to Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East.

"We will boost the proportion of our export revenues to 20 per cent of total revenue next year by focusing on the countries where they are only slightly hit by the global financial cri¬sis and have robust demand growth," he said.

The company reported sales of about 12 million square metres of roof tiles and 10 million square metres of fibreboards in the first half of this year, which were similar to the same period last year.

However, its sales of synthetic woodsubstitute products recorded 2.5 million square metres in the first six months, up 10 to 15 per cent year on year.

It predicted that its sales growth of roof tiles and fibre boards will con¬tract about 5 per cent this year, and the sales growth of synthetic woodsubstitute products will expand less than 10 per cent.

"The market situation in the sec¬ond half will normally get worse than the first half because of the rainy season. Therefore, we think our total sales will be lower than our target at the start of the year and proba¬bly less than last year," Thongchai added.

Earlier the company was optimistic that the overall market this year would expand more than 10 per cent, compared to 8 per cent growth in 2007.

However, the revised forecast assumes a 2percent contraction in the total market for roof tiles and fibre boards, while synthetic wood prod¬ucts keep growing 10 to 15 per cent due to high demand in the housing renovation market.

Siam FibreCement is the market leader with about 30 per cent of total market in the three products. Other players in the market are Mahaphant Fibre Cement, Diamond Roofing Tile, Olarn, and Conwood.

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Fibre cement maker plans more exports

Middle East targeted to offset slowdown in domestic, Asian sales

OTHER BUSINESS

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