SCG Cement in March had acquired 99% equity of Buu Long cement plant in Dong Nai Province to produce white cement for local demand with a total output of 50,000 tons annually. It spent an estimated US$5.5 million purchasing the stake and upgrading the factory. Pramote Techasupatkul, president of SCG Cement, told the Daily the aforesaid information on the sidelines of a conference on ASEAN sustainable development held by SCG in Bangkok, Thailand on Monday.

The cement maker by then had provided the local market with cement products imported from its factory in Thailand.

With huge potential thanks to rising cement consumption in the local infrastructure development, SCG Cement has still decided to expand cement production in the next few years.

Pramote noted now was not the right time for his firm to build a new cement factory in Vietnam as there are so many cement plants already operational in the country. "However, we have still drawn up the plan to expand the production of high-quality white and grey cement in Vietnam in the near future,” he said.

SGC Group now is pouring money into five major areas including chemicals, cement, paper, building materials and distribution, and SCG Cement is a large cement producer of the group in Thailand.

SCG Cement now has five plants in Thailand and another in Cambodia and it is preparing to construct one more factory in Indonesia.