Cement sales register 5.52% growth

Domestic consumption rises 9% to 17.78m tons from 16.29m tons.

KARACHI: Cement manufacturers have posted a sales growth of 5.52% in the first eight months of the current financial year compared to the same period of previous year.

Total sales were 22.78 million tons against 21.59 million tons in the corresponding period of previous financial year.

Domestic consumption increased 9.12% to 17.782 million tons from 16.29 million tons last year. Exports registered a decline of 5.55% from 5.292 million tons to 4.988 million tons.

During February, local sales of cement posted a healthy growth of 6.96% while exports showed a substantial decline of 21.08%, resulting in overall nominal growth of 0.97% compared to the same month of the last fiscal year.



Domestic and export volumes were 2.2 million tons and 0.461 million tons respectively during February compared to 2.148 million tons and 0.58 million tons during February 2014.

Domestic sales in the country’s north were 1.8 million tons during February compared to sales of 1.7 million tons in the same month of previous year, showing a growth of 6.05%.

Local sales in the south during February were 0.4 million tons compared to 0.3 million tons in the corresponding month of last year, a rise of 11.3%. Total dispatches increased from 2.731 million tons during February 2014 to 2.758 million tons during February 2015, recording a marginal increase of 0.97%.

Pointing to the decline in exports, a spokesman for the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association said that a huge quantity of Iranian cement was being imported by evading duty and this is adversely affecting the Pakistani market.

Moreover, different factors including high tariffs of gas and electricity, hike in other input costs, duty on imported coal, depreciation of the rupee, expensive labour, poor law and order situation and non-tariff barriers imposed by India have already adversely affected industry dynamics in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, March  7^th,  2015.

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