SITTING back comfortably in his swivel chair with a contented expression, U Zaw Lin Aung, the managing director of Shwemyan Shwesan Concrete Products Co., Ltd, explained how he got into manufacturing bricks from concrete rather than the traditional clay.

“I began researching this (concrete bricks) five years ago, and two years ago I started producing them. They’re widely used all over the world, and people in Myanmar also tried to produce them years ago,” he said.

However, early concrete masonry unit (CMU) manufacturing enterprises failed, prompting U Zaw Lin Aung to make slow but steady business moves.

“My main intention in producing this kind of brick is to have more affordable housing,” he says. “I know we will not make much profit at first since people have no idea what kind of brick it is and we have to do a lot of educating first. But I’m willing to take the time.”

Together with the Department of Human Settlement and Housing Development, U Zaw Lin Aung made a detailed study of the CMU brick, the findings of which will be released to a meeting of potential customers shortly.
“Some of the advantages of the CMU brick are that the amount of steel used can be reduced, the wall will have the look of stone and doesn’t need plastering, and it is more earthquake resistant than normal clay bricks,” he explained.

“The price of a CMU brick will be more than a clay brick but when the cost is calculated for the whole building it will work out to be about 10 per cent less than with normal bricks. And the normal brick can cause a lot of waste by breaking into pieces since it is often not strong enough during transportation,” he said.

Concrete bricks sell for K48, K78, K98 and K128 depending on size, whereas clay bricks range from K43 to K70 depending on whether they are machine or manually made, U Zaw Lin Aung said.