Not everyone will agree, but the key figures show it - the area's building industry last year showed real growth. Not spectacular stuff, but good enough overall to have kept the cement mixers humming steadily and trowelling inching up.

And the indications are that these circumstances will continue - at least for the first half of this year. Meanwhile all eyes are turned towards interest rates, trusting that prime will fall below 15% to carry the momentum through for the rest of the year.

The truth is not all participants in our area's building industry are sharing the fortunes. While the residential building is looking decidedly up, activity in the non-residential side (offices, shops, industrial) is lack-lustre.
PPC's sales and marketing for the coastal area confirms that total cement sales last year rose 8% to over 1.1million tons, compared to the previous year's figures. Sales growth in the last quarter of 2002 even spiked at 12%, compared to the same period in the previous year. PPC says that they expect the good growth to continue and that total cement sales (PPC is the only cement supplier to the area) will this year hopefully show an average volume growth of at least 5%.

Interestingly, it also notes that cement sales to the retailers are picking up handsomely, taking up the slack in bulk sales of cement. This confirms the notion that residential building is the place to be , rather than non-residential.

Major brick producers also report volume growth of about 6% in sales. The brick producers also feel that this growth can be maintained if the Prime Rate declines below 15% - this seems to be the psychological barrier; below 15% industry thrives, higher and it struggles.

Brick producers also point out the shift to residential building, whereas a couple of years ago seven out of ten bricks were sold to residential builders, now nine of ten go to home building.

Some 500 million concrete and clay bricks are now produced annually for the Western cape, a far cry from the 60 million some ten years ago. Plaster bricks are now selling at 45c to 50c each, but because of rising input costs around 65c is now required to fully recover investments and to get the brick making industry on a sound footing again.

While residential building has a rosier gloss, conditions in the non-residential are tough as the numerous liquidations of smaller building contractors will attest. Also, some of the bigger names have either closed down or are much leaner . Murray & Roberts no longer have an office here in the Southern Cape and their headquarters is now in Johannesburg. Others have thinned markedly, reflecting the absence of of major jobs like the casinos which kept the big ones busy, but it is in these conditions that some of the more nimble, mid-sized companies are, if not thriving, at least surviving.

Semper Prima and Marsillio Projects seem to be of this ilk in our area. Business started improving during the middle of last year with most of the work acquired being negotiated work. The last quarter was also marked by a shortage of materials, but it is felt that this situation will improve with the increased business confidence in this area thanks to the increased tourism and growing exports. This in turn will have a knock-on effect for some builders as these industries need to expand their facilities. Read this together with a probable increase in government spending in the run-up to next year's general election and conditions may improve even further.

Alf Zehmke - Master Builders' Association - George