Friday April 4, 10:45 AM
Holcim considers Venezuela cement move 'very seriously'
ZURICH (AFP) - Switzerland's Holcim (Virt-X: HOLN.VX - news) , the world's second-biggest cement maker, said on Friday it was taking very seriously plans to nationalise the industry in Venezuela.
"We take that very seriously but we stay calm because this is not the first time that (the Venezuelan president) announces that the sector is going to be nationalised. We have to wait and see what happens," a Holcim spokesman said.
He said Holcim has two plants in Venezuela with annual capacity of three million tonnes or 1.5 percent of the group's total, accounting for one percent of its global revenues.
President Hugo Chavez announced late on Thursday that he wanted to nationalise cement companies operating in Venezuela, including Mexico's Cemex and France's Lafarge (Paris: FR0000120537 - news) .
"We are going to nationalise the cement industry," Chavez said.
"We're going to make an assessment, we will pay what it cost these people and we will at the same time make a technological plan to modernize the cement plants while putting social power in the hands of the state."
Chavez complained that the cement companies were not serving Venezuelan demand, preferring to export their production.
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