General Beltings adjusts as demand softens

04 Oct, 2015 - 00:10 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

Business Reporter
CONVEYOR BELTS producer General Beltings says it is now focusing on improving production efficiencies in order to adjust to low demand from mining companies that are presently facing significant headwinds from falling commodity prices on the international market. The groups’ managing director, Mr Wilbroad Tsuroh, intimated last week that reducing margins could help spur demand. “If we continue to give them expensive products, sooner or later they will collapse; so, we work with them to try and minimise the cost of our product as much as possible. So it is that symbiotic relationship that keeps us going,” said Mr Tsuroh.

General Beltings is now focusing on supplying the local market as there are inherent exchange losses involved in exporting to the region, particularly South Africa.

It is estimated that exporting could be more than 20 percent expensive due to the volatility of regional currencies. The company used to export to countries such as Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania and Namibia.

However, the company’s failure to pay full salaries to its employees is now presenting huge risks to the business.
“Obviously we want to be motivated (as humans) so the risk that we run is that we lose skills. Some people give up and walk away but obviously given the situation that we are in, in terms of the need to contain costs, we try to encourage each other as a team that we shouldn’t look at immediate gratification but rather focus on the future.

“Yes, engineers we have lost, process chemists (we have also lost) but we lose some; we gain some.
‘‘The way we look at it is that we are a living organism, we shed some skin and we gain some skin,” explained Mr Tsuroh. In the first five months to May 2015, General Beltings reported a 47 percent growth in turnover compared to the same period last year as business showed signs of improvement.

General Beltings is the only manufacturer of conveyor belting in Zimbabwe and therefore supplies almost all of the country’s requirements as well as regional markets, with competition coming from imports.

Some types of conveyor belts produced by the company are rubber-covered belting, PVC belting, light duty PVC belting, solid woven belting, transmission belting and conveyor belt rubber skirting.

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