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Holcim Lanka held its Annual Review at the Water's Edge, Battaramulla. The company's Chief Executive Officer, Peter Spirig presented the company's performance along the triple bottom lines of Economic Performance, Social Performance and Environmental Performance under the theme 'Foundations for the Future'.

Holcim Lanka's continuous growth and commitment to Sri Lanka's economy was again reiterated by the CEO and was confirmed by the company's Chairman, V. Manilal Fernando.

Spirig said, "Our performance indicators point in the right direction - lost-time incidents are at an all-time low, and moving towards zero, sales and operating profits are up markedly, plus employees and the society at large approve of our philosophy of superior performance in all areas of the triple bottom line."

Holcim Lanka had a good 2005, marked by a top-line growth of another 30% to Rs. 8.3 billion on account of a 9% volume increase. Despite the fact that the government imposed a price control on cement at the end of August 2005 (and subsequently removed it again in January 2006), thus hampering the recovery of increasing cost, operating profits more than doubled to Rs. 1.28 billion. Net income however still remains below the full cost of capital - a mark that needs to be met for our organisation to create value to the Holcim Group, which in turn is the main criteria for further investments in Sri Lanka.

Cement despatches grew along with the market in 2005, and thus our market share remained firm at 30%. Our capacity has been restricted during the first eight to nine months of the year, and this constraint was only resolved with the commissioning of the new grinding line at PCW. Following an overall campaign to promote the Holcim brand a year ago, this year's main marketing drive rested on the familiarisation of the local market with the concept of application-based cements. We have now positioned the portfolio of our three main brands well in the market.

After a major investment in new stack filters at PCW in 2004, our efforts in the field of environmental performance focused on further improving our ISO 14001 certified environmental management system. RCW, barely three months after having been inundated by the tsunami, received the certification in March 2005.

Helping Sri Lanka to rise again after the tsunami was the prime focus of our corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative this year. Holcim Lanka's fund for reconstruction, created immediately after the disaster and endowed with contributions from all over the world amounting to almost Rs 130 million, was engaged in the building of some 650 houses, seven schools, as well as various livelihood support projects launched to help thousands left unemployed due to the tsunami.

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