By peter egwuatu, with Agency Report

Nampak’s Nigerian unit has won a contract to provide Nigeria Breweries Plc (NB), a brewer controlled by Heineken NV (HEIA), with labels for beer bottles, Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Marshall has said.

“We are currently supplying labels for 20 percent of their volume,” he said. Nampak is in talks with the brewer to increase the labels it provides to 40 percent of Nigeria Breweries’ total volume, he said. “We hope to invest in more capacity as soon as the company gives us a long-term contract,” said Marshall.

Marshall, futher disclosed that Nampak Ltd. (NPK), a South African packaging company, plans to double earnings from businesses elsewhere on the continent to 16 percent of the total this fiscal year.

“We will perhaps double profits from Africa by the end of this financial year,” said Marshall in an interview in Johannesburg, with Reuters.

The company, which has operations in 12 other African countries as well as the U.K., is working on projects across the continent, and may enter new markets, Marshall said. He would not identify the projects or the countries as negotiations have not yet been concluded.

“Africa, the company’s biggest market, falling to 13 billion rand from 13.3 billion rand.Those projects will help increase earnings and sales to 25 percent of the group in four years’ time,” Marshall said.

The maker of packaging materials from beverage cans to cement packets said it is waiting for the Angolan government to introduce laws that subject finished products entering the nation to import duties before it commits more funds in the oil- producing nation. “We will then invest in two beverage-related plants totaling over $100 million,” said Marshall.