Sameer Africa degazettes EPZ land as firm’s profits double

By Fred Obura

Sameer Africa Ltd (SAL) has degazetted half of the 260,000 sqft premises, which was under the Export Processing Zone scheme. It is letting it out to local tenants.

Sameer said the decision was necessitated by the slow off-take of EPZ designated premises and the need to maximise on land use.

Naivas Supermarkets has now taken over the space previously occupied by a foreign investor.

The firm’s chairman Erastus Mwongera and the Managing Director Michael Karanja confirmed the degazettement while addressing shareholders during the 43rd Annual General Meeting at the company’s Mombasa Road premises.

Mwongera also reported that SAL had returned a pre-tax profit of Sh148 million last year, compared to Sh62 million during the previous financial year while turnover grew to almost Sh3.7 billion from Sh3.3 billion in 2010.

He attributed the improved performance to stringent measures to protect trading margins despite inflationary pressures, as well as prudent management of operating cost.

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But Mwongera said the company’s overall performance was affected by   increase in the costs of manufacturing.

The increase was due to rising fuel and raw material costs as well as the effects of inflation from the weakening of the shilling.

He predicted a more favourable trading environment this year. This is  despite being an electioneering year with the prices of basic raw material for tyre manufacture as well as crude oil prices and the exchange rate of the Shilling against major currencies projected to stabilise.