São Paulo – Cejatel, a roof and floor tile manufacturing company based in the state of Santa Catarina, has just entered the Arab market. Last week, the enterprise shipped its first order to Lebanon. A total of two containers were shipped, totalling 18,000 clay tiles, which were sold to a Lebanese builder.
Now the company is waiting for the arrival of the goods the customer’s feedback before it sets up new sales deal for the region. “Our intention, should things turn out right, is to continue doing business not only in Lebanon, but also in the other countries that he (our customer) has access to,” says Marcos Sipriano Inácio, a representative of the Export Department. According to him, the success of this first delivery may pave the way to the Syrian, Jordania and Saudi markets.
Cejatel ships 25% to 30% of its production to foreign countries. Its buyers include countries in the Caribbean, Central America, Africa and South America. Inácio claims that the company has no projection yet of how much it might earn in terms of revenues from sales to the Arabs. “We are taking our first steps, so we are not worried about that.”
This, however, does not mean that the company is doing nothing to speed things up. In October of last year, Cejatel participated in Saudi Build, the leading construction fair in Saudi Arabia, during which it also made contact with potential Arab buyers.
“We have keen interest in that market. We went to the fair to become familiar with it. We are checking product acceptance first. It is a great market and we know that it is growing,” says Inácio.
Cejatel was founded in 1973. Currently it has 350 employees, and makes approximately 3 million square metres of roof tiles and 5 million square metres of floor tiles per year. Rising sales on the domestic and foreign markets are leading the company to increase its output. According to Inácio, within a month, Cejatel will be manufacturing twice as much.
Contact
Cejatel
e-mail: msi@cejatel.com.br
site: www.cejatel.com.br
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
