IME Group, a business conglomerate of Nepal, has announced setting up Rs10 billion cement factory in Chormara of Nawalparasi (East).

The IME Group—which  has been engaged in the country’s banking and financial sectors for the past three decades—will set up the factory under the IME brand.

The group has already acquired 65 bighas of land in Ward 10 of Madhya Bindu Municipality in the Nawalparasi (East), according to the group’s Chairman Chandra Dhakal.

“We decided to venture into the cement industry after forecasting the increasing demand for cement in the future,” said Dhakal. “The demand for cement will exponentially rise in the coming years as the local governments will be focusing on infrastructure development.”

The IME Group will extract limestone—raw material used in cement production—from Madanpur and Sisdi Rural Municipalities of Palpa district. The factory will be located at the border of Palpa district.

The limestone mine, spread through the area of 15 square kilometres, is some 25km away from the plant site.

The mine has 18.72 million tonnes of raw material, according to a report of Investment Board Nepal.

According to the board, the factory will come into operation after four years—first year for preliminary works, second for capital formation and the next two years for factory construction.

Nawalparasi has become a preferred destination for cement production in Nepal. Hongshi-Shivam Cement, the country’s largest ever cement plant with Chinese investment, is in Nawalparasi. Likewise, CG cement, Sarbottam cement, Butwal cement are also operating cement business in Nawalparasi. All these factories combined produce 21,000 metric tonnes of cement and clinker.

IME’s Chairman Dhakal said that the process for setting up the factory will be expedited immediately after the completion of Nepal Investment Summit slated for March 29-30.

The Investment Board will showcase IME cement under the private sector investment during the Investment Summit.

Huaxin Cement Narayani, a Nepali-Chinese joint venture formed to establish a cement factory in Dhading district, is all set to start the construction of the plant. According to Investment Board Nepal, the government agency facilitating the joint venture company, the foundation stone of the factory will be laid within a few days.

The company has already purchased 500 ropanis of the land required for the construction and operation of its plant at Panikharka of Dhading. It has also acquired a limestone mine from the Department of Mine and Geology through global tender by paying Rs600 million.

Huaxin Cement Narayani had signed project investment agreement (PIA) with the IBN in the presence of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli in the Chinese capital Beijing in June 2018. The PIA is an agreement that a foreign investor needs to sign with IBN to develop private projects in Nepal.