"Bangladesh is a growing market and there has always been a demand for quality cement. So, the thrust is to sell our Supercrete brand cement in the local market as Bangladesh is our major market," Yong Ngai Chan, managing director of the company, told a group of reporters during a media tour to the cement plant at Chhatak in Sunamganj district on Wednesday.

"As we are producing clinker in our own plant using raw materials -- limestone and shale -- from our own quarry in Meghalaya, India, we can ensure consistent supply of cement," said Chan.

Jointly built by world leader in building materials Lafarge of France and renowned Spanish cement maker Cementos Molins, Lafarge Surma Cement is the first fully integrated dry process cement manufacturing plant in Bangladesh.

According to Chan, Lafarge Surma cement plant, built on an area of about 90 acres of land on the bank of river Surma, is one of the best and technically advanced plant in the entire network of Lafarge, which has operations in 76 countries.

"It is also a unique cross border project as the cement plant is linked between its quarry site at East Khasi Hills in Meghalaya and clinker and cement manufacturing plant at Chhatak in Sylhet with a 17 kilometers (ten kilometers in Bangladesh side and seven kilometres in Indian side) long belt conveyor," he said.

The conveyor belt has a capacity of bringing 800 tonnes of limestone and shale per hour from quarry site.

Lafarge also set up a modern crushing plant at the quarry site that crushes the limestone and feeds into the belt conveyor to be transported to the cement plant in Bangladesh. "In the quarry there is a stock of limestone for over 50 years," the managing director said.

The managing director said at the moment the cement plant has the capacity of producing 1.5 million tonnes of cement per year. "We are also studying the feasibility of increasing the capacity," he added.

Chan also said there is a chain of extremely high standard quality control system from the raw materials to the finished products, as the plant has the state-of-the-art high tech equipment to test and ensure quality.

Replying to a query, Chan said around US$ 270 million was invested in the cement plant. "We also expect to make profit from the next year," he hoped.

The company started its trial production of clinker in August, commercial production of cement in September and marketing of Supercrete cement in November this year.

Apart from cement production, Lafarge is also carrying out a community development project, under which the company is running a school to educate the children of the people, who have been rehabilitated from the project site.

Construction of the project began in late 2003. Earlier, a massive land development was done for raising the 90 acres of landmass to be flood safe. Over three million cubic metres of sand and earth were filled in the area.