Italian cement maker Italcementi SpA may consider moving its regional hub from Egypt if the country’s dollar shortage persists for another year. The company has been unable to repatriate EUR50 million of profit from Egypt for about a year, and is also facing difficulties in paying its foreign suppliers, according to Bruno Carre, managing director of its Egyptian unit, Suez Cement. “It isn’t an urgent issue, but if currency availability remains tight, we will have to establish other channels to develop our activities in the region,” Carre said in a phone interview from Cairo. Egypt’s currency shortage makes it difficult to transfer money to pay dividends and to fund regional investments, he said. Italcementi has shifted to coal from natural gas to power two of its five factories in Egypt, and plans to invest EGP700 million (USD89 million) to do the same at two more in 2017. The company doesn’t have a problem importing coal but faces a “difficult process" and “red tape" to source dollars to pay suppliers, Carre said. “At some point my foreign suppliers could say, ‘if you’re not paying I won’t continue supplying,”’ he said. (Bloomberg)