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Portland Paints Boosts Production Capacity

The Punch
Sulaiman Adenekan
14 Mar 2008

Portland Paints and Products Nigeria Limited, is to increase its production capacity by 65 percent in order to meet the increasing demand for products. The Managing Director of the company, Mr. Bayo Osibo, who said this on Wednesday in Lagos at the company‘s 2008 distributors forum, noted that the addition capacity within the next two months. The expansion of the company‘s production capacity he said, was in response to increasing demand by that and distributors, consumers the increase would cut across its entire paints product line.

He said that the development would impact on the company’s ability to produce more paints and lower incidence of colour variation. Osibo said, ”We are importing machines that will ensure that our colours are the same, it will no longer be judged by human eye, because human beings will always make mistakes, but if you now use machines, the won’t be mistakes if we calibrate and maintain them well.” He said the company‘s expectations from the distributors this year were considerably higher than last year because of the increased production capacity.

He said the company regarded its distributors as partners rather than mere sellers of its products, as it could not do without them. He said, ”At the end of last year, the company performed about 25 percent over 2006, that can not be said to be our own effort alone, but in collaboration with our distributors. He said the availability of raw materials a major challenge facing the industry, as most of the materials used were imported, thereby increasing the prices of paints in the market.

Osibo said, ”The price of the paint you buy in the village is determined by the cost of raw materials that is coming from Belgium, that is a challenge to us, though the government has done a little bit to reduce tariff.
”Another challenge is domestic demand. We don‘t have enough domestic demand, there are over 12,000 registered and unregistered paint manufacturers, but what are they doing. How many houses are being painted and repainted in the country?

”Government structures don‘t get repainted, drive round any city in the country you will see houses that are begging for paints, you will see houses that are not painted at all ,even in the capital city that is the challenge, we need something to stimulate demand. ”It reflects the level of our economy, it reflects the level of disposable income, and level of ownership of houses, in this country, 80 per cent of people lives in somebody else’s house.

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