BCIC enters Tk3,000 crore joint venture with Saudi firm EDII
They will set up a cement plant with a capacity to process 12,000 tonnes of clinker from limestone and 3,000 tonnes of cement per day
The Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) has entered a joint venture agreement with Saudi firm Engineering Dimensions International Investment (EDII) LLC to set up a cement plant next to the Chhatak cement factory in Sunamganj.
The joint venture project is estimated to be worth Tk3,000 crore and is an outcome of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to Saudi Arabia in October 2018, where a memorandum of understanding was signed.
BCIC Chairman Md Mostafizur Rahman and EDII President and CEO Mohammad Nazib Al Hazi signed the investment contract on Monday at the BCIC headquarter in the capital, according to a press release.
The project is scheduled to enter production in mid-2023 with a capacity to process 12,000 tonnes of clinker from limestone imported from India and 3,000 tonnes of cement per day. The production facility is expected to employ 700 people.
The feasibility study for the project was done by Singapore-based DG Infratech Private Ltd.
Local representatives of both the investor and consultant firms, alongside BCIC and industries ministry senior officials, were present at the contract signing ceremony.
EDII is also implementing a $35 million project at the state-owned General Electric Manufacturing Company Limited (GEMCO) for manufacturing transformers and electricity devices.
Meanwhile, as the owner, the BCIC is implementing a nearly Tk900 crore modernisation project at the Chhatak Cement Company Ltd factory which will transform the decades-old cement plant into a dry processing unit from its existing wet processing style of production.