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| Sunday, 02 March 2003 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Second flour mill to help save forex Members of the Al Ghurair Group of Companies of Dubai, National Flour Mills (NFM) and Emirates Trading Agency (ETA), plan to invest US $53 million five billion rupees in Sri Lanka through their joint venture, Serendib Flour Mills (Pvt) Ltd. (SFML). Subsidiaries of one of Dubai's largest conglomerates, NFM and ETA together have a turnover exceeding US $4 billion. The investors have been present in the UAE's flour milling business for the past 25 years, with operations also in the Middle East and Africa. NFM currently operates and manages two flour mills in the UAE and one each in Sudan and Lebanon. A fifth mill is scheduled to commence commercial production in Algeria shortly. ETA owns and operates 14 handy, handymax and panamax vessels and charters many more. They will be combining their strengths in flour milling, ocean transport, commodity trading, logistics and local marketing in Sri Lanka. The project envisages setting up a modern flour mill at the Colombo Port, within close proximity to the consumption centres. The plant will have an initial milling capacity of 1,000 metric tonnes per day with the ability to increase production to 2,000 metric tonnes per day. Serendib Flour Mills is a turn key project, with the equipment needed for milling purposes being imported from Switzerland. The mill is expected to go into production in the third quarter of 2004. The foreign exchange savings from importing wheat for milling flour locally, compared to importing flour for consumption is almost US $20 to US $30 per ton. With an initial milling capacity of 300,000 tonnes, SFML would help save US $6-9 million annually. There would also be potential to export both bran and flour in the future, bringing foreign exchange into the country. Al Ghurair currently exports flour to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Male, Indonesia and Africa; this opportunity will be available to SFML. Serendib Flour Mills expects to ease flour shortages. With its initial milling capacity of 300,000 tonnes, balanced distribution of flour within the country would be ensured. This would assist the Government in making considerable savings of national funds that would otherwise be spent on flour imports for consumption. Customers stand to gain by way of competitive prices and a wider choice. Serendib Flour Mills plans to deliver high quality wheat flour and maintain the same standards of National Flour Mills in Dubai, which meets stringent international standards. The Dubai flour-milling complex manufactures 42 varieties of flour. The Al Ghurair Group has an eye on further investments in Sri Lanka, the company said. |
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