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Stabroek News

Government of Jamaica to state position on cement import duty
published: Tuesday | March 7, 2006

COMMERCE, SCIENCE and Technology Minister, Phillip Paulwell, is today expected to outline the government's position on the call for the removal of a 41 per cent import duty on cement.

Minister of Information, Senator Burchell Whiteman told reporters at yesterday's weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House that the matter was discussed at Cabinet.

"The minister will make a statement on the matter shortly," he said when asked by reporters what had been decided by the government.

The Incorporated Master Builders Association and the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party in recent days have renewed calls for the removal of the duty in light of a shortage of the product on the market.

They also pointed to the 12.5 per cent price increase announced by the country's only producer of cement, Caribbean Cement Company Ltd., and the expected increases in construction costs that will result.

INVESTIGATIONS

Meanwhile, one of two concrete experts, Dr. Robin Osbourne of the Faculty of Engineering at the St. Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies should have arrived in the island yesterday to conduct investigations into the production of cement at the company

The other is an international expert in cement from Construc-tion Technology Laboratories in the United States.

The two are to determine the cause of a faulty batch of 500 tonnes of cement which hardens prematurely, being released on the local market last month. The batch has since been recalled.

Marketing Manager of Carib Cement, Alice Hyde, said the investigation will help to determine factors that led to a breach of the company's rigorous quality standards at its Rockfort-based plant.

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