17 / 44
CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS
FEBRUARY 2017
15
BUSINESS
business. The company is now the largest
Cummins distributor in Africa, and is one of
the two largest distribution businesses of the
engine maker in Middle East and Africa.
Strategic market
Ouenniche reiterates that southern Africa
remains a key market for Cummins despite
its strong reliance on mining, which is not
obviously enjoying the best of times at
present.
Despite the struggling mining sector,
diversification is carrying the business
through the turbulent times. “Cummins
Southern Africa remains a very strategic
market for Cummins. While mining, which
is a big market for us, is not at its best, our
engine business spreads us across other
growth markets such as power generation,
marine, locomotives, trucks and construction.
We see a lot of opportunity in all those areas,”
says Ouenniche. “We are very optimistic of
our potential growth. When mining returns,
we will be well positioned to make the most
of it through the investments we have made
in southern Africa.”
While Pimi agrees that mining – the
breadbasket for southern African economies
– is down, he argues that it is not out. “There
is still a lot of mineral extraction going
on. While some greenfields projects have
been delayed, extraction hasn’t stopped.
Commodity prices have this funny way
of going up and down and right now, on
average, they are down, but there is activity
going on. The most important thing at this
point is optimisation across the board. We
just need to prepare ourselves to adjust
quickly in difficult times,” says Pimi.
Pimi is also encouraged by other business
opportunities in southern Africa, other than
mining. “Southern Africa is not immune to
the infrastructure development gap that we
have seen in all parts of the continent. We
To demonstrate the importance of southern Africa to
Cummins’ ventures in Africa, Cummins Southern Africa
has benefitted from several key investments to build its
capacity to support the distribution business in the region.
Rachid Ouenniche, MD of Distribution for
Cummins Africa-Middle East (left), hands over
the Distributorship Award to Thierry Pimi, MD
of Cummins Southern Africa.