EVENTS
Robyn Grimsley
Maximum Equipment
Waylon Kukard, sales and marketing manager at Wirtgen South Africa.
Vaughan Ellis, MD of Maximum Equipment. impacted by refurbishment in the building sector,” says Smuts. This is something the company expects to see continue for the next couple of years. The mining sector, as always, will be primarily affected by a combination of commodity pricing and demand.
In terms of focus areas for African growth, Chryso identifies countries in East Africa— primarily Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, although with possible recovery in both Zimbabwe and Mozambique— as well as West Africa— Nigeria, Angola, and Ghana— which Smuts says could see a possible recovery linked to higher oil prices.
South African OEM Bell Equipment will also be making its third appearance at bauma Africa this year, having attended both previous events in 2013 and 2015.“ We are proud to be associated with a great local show of this calibre,” says Mark Hughes, director of sales and marketing at Bell Equipment Sales South Africa.“ Since this is the third such show, we are confident that it has established itself in the market and will be well attended by decision makers and our customer base from all industries and subregions.”
“ Apart from showcasing our extensive product range,” he adds,“ we will be using the show to officially introduce our new strategic partners and products following our exclusive distribution agreements concluded last year with Kobelco for its range of excavators, and KAMAZ for its range of heavy-duty tipper trucks. We are expecting this to generate a fair amount of interest in Bell and our stand in general, particularly as we’ ll also be hosting Russian and Japanese theme evenings to celebrate our new partners.”
Hughes also highlights access to funding as being the biggest challenge the industry is currently facing.“ We find there is more equipment available than funding, and the onus is on OEMs to have new and unique ways to fund the equipment that they sell.” Despite this, he echoes the general feeling of optimism going into 2018.“ The newly established stability in the Zimbabwe mining industry bodes well for strong growth, and the coal sector is another one we will be watching closely, as it is traditionally the sector with the largest uptake for our products. There is a wave of change across the subregion and we hope to see investment in the Copper Belt region with the upsurge in demand for cobalt. The construction industry in South Africa is another primary area for investment, and we are already seeing the first signs of support and aid to Zimbabwe for its agriculture sector.”
As far as the outlook for southern Africa’ s mining and construction markets in 2018 goes, Hughes says Bell is expecting to see continued good demand from the coal sector, but that there are concerns that platinum group metals will remain under pressure.“ Copper and cobalt are exciting commodities to watch as there has been excellent recovery in the copper price and the cobalt price is at an all-time high, given that it is the principle ingredient of the battery industry— this is giving that sector a much-needed shot in the arm. As for construction, the market is steady but remains under pressure, largely due to the lack of government spend, although the road construction and aggregates sectors are holding up well.”
14
MARCH 2018