Mr Elwyn Blattner
The President of the group

 

Welcome,

With undisguised pride I present to you the group GBE. We are happy to note that during the past two years the Group has progressed as a whole in its core sectors. Thanks to the political stability that has prevailed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the economic growth was largely influenced by the substantial rise in prices of the country’s exports.

Our two important plantations of the Society of Cultures (Binga and Bosondjo) finally have begun producing the hoped-for quantities of palm oil ; this after four years of hard work. We have chosen Binga as the site for our third factory of granulated rubber. The production it added permitted us to consolidate our position as leader in the industrial oil sector. We continue our rate of expansion of more than 1800 hectares a year, which will permit us, in time, to fully respond to the local demand for palm oil. Several companies of the Group were closed or sold in the interest of focusing ourselves in one of the key sectors of the Group, that of service. Thanks to our new company, Italmotors, which is the sole distributor for IVECO in all of the DRC, we continue to effectively develop this important sector..

I cannot close this message without mentioning the significant degradation of the worldwide economy. The Group will certainly be affected, as the price of raw material has already fallen drastically. In the past we have demonstrated our flexibility in the difficult environment that has been the DRC.

Surely the Group will again rise above this new test.

by Mr Elwyn Blattner
President of the group
02 september 2007