At 9:00 am today, Prime Minister José Maria Neves will preside over the ribbon-cutting ceremony of two factories on the island of Sal. One of the two units, located in the Palmeira Industrial Zone, is a construction material factory, and the other is a new Cabocem cement factory.

Both Inteco and the Cabocem cement factory belong to the Grupo Stefanina and represent an investment of some 10 million euros. Inteco, according to information provided by the promoters of the investment, will be one of Cape Verde’s largest industrial complexes both in structural and technological terms.

“Inteco is introducing the Advanced Building System in Cape Verde. The ABS is based on expansive polyestirene, a material that is especially appropriate for use as an isolator. It is an element used in decorations and finishing,” says Inteco.

Inteco has a social capital of 800 million escudos, 90% of which is held by Turinvest Holding and 10% by engineer Andrea Stefanina. It is the fifth company in the Stefanina Group’s industrial sector, and the factory occupies a total of 30,000 square meters.

According to its delegate administrator António Ciriaco Cabral, the new technology Inteco is introducing in Cape Verde is environmentally friendly. “Alongside the conceptive advantages of the model and the greater level of creativity in architectural terms, it allows approximately 50% of the volume of construction work traditionally concentrated at worksites to be transferred to this factory, providing for a reduction in the consumption of sand by more than 40%,” he says.

But the main advantage, guarantees Cabral, is that, in the future, the use of natural sand will no longer be necessary. In this way, Inteco will help to resolve one of the most pressing problems faced by both national and local public entities, the illegal extraction of sand from Cape Verde’s beaches for use in the making of cement. The factory possesses equipment allowing it to produce artificial sand from basaltic rock.

The new Cabocem cement factory, for its part, will produce pozzolana cement, Portland cement and various other cement derivatives.

Source: A Semana