The challenge to find work remains the biggest obstacle to sustained growth for the South African building industry, and it is to be hoped that the new municipal leaders will find a way to expedite long overdue infrastructural projects, says Norman Seymore (pictured), CEO of the Chryso Southern Africa Group.
Seymore, who is also vice-president of Chryso globally, was interviewed after a recent function to mark the 20th anniversary of the company’s operations in South Africa.
‘’It is imperative that government – on both local and national level – finds a way to release the billions of rands that have been allocated for new building work in South Africa. Hopefully, the new civic leaders – who will control the country’s biggest municipal budgets – will lead the way to at long last provide the projects building contractors and materials suppliers have eagerly awaited for years,” Seymore said.
“Chryso, together with so many other building industry members, during this time had to step up exports and operations outside our borders to survive. This not acceptable when so much work is available in our own country and we fervently hope the new local governments will have both the skills, and willingness, to give the national construction sector a new lease on life.”
Looking to Chryso Southern Africa’s future, Seymore said it was an innovative company that would continue to develop products and systems to enhance its product offering and market position.
“We will continue to diversify and grow. Research and development will play a vital role and we will this year, as before, invest at least 4% of sales and revenue into this facet of our operations. In addition, we will open a new dedicated R&D Centre at our head office in Jet Park which will, among other services, put increasing emphasis on modifying and adapting the top quality admixtures we import from the Chryso parent company in Europe for the South African market.”
He said that being part of a major international group has many benefits and added to the experience that Chryso brings to the market.
“An important plus factor for Chryso Southern Africa is that we now produce our own raw materials for the formulation of Chryso’s acclaimed New Generation admixtures and no longer have to import these at exorbitant costs because of the dismal state of the rand.”
Chryso had already acquired new highly high-technology laboratory equipment and undertaken a major upgrading of its testing facilities during the past year. A special lab, concentrating on concrete specifically, is now also in operation at Jet Park, with similar facilities planned for Chryso’s operations in both Cape Town and Durban in future.
The company had also made significant progress in the ‘greening’ of its own products in the past 20 years, culminating in the pioneering introduction of dustless manufacturing processes for cementitious products at its main plants.
“The products Chryso supplies to the cement industry for fly ash and slagment production, plus limestone extension, have enabled cement producers to significantly reduce their own carbon dioxide emissions – something we are very proud of.
“Chryso’s growth over the past two decades has been driven organically through innovation and technology, as well as through geographic expansion within South Africa with local production and technical support now in place in all the major centres.
“External growth came through acquisitions, notably that of a.b.e. Construction Chemicals in 2010, a take-over that transformed the Chryso Group into the metaphorical one-stop-shop for the construction sector. Our staff have also played an invaluable role: having experienced technical experts to assist and partner with our customers has contributed substantially to 20 years of growth in this volatile and challenging industry,” Seymore said.