Local sales: Cement demand soars 17% as new projects begin

Exports, however, drop 22% in July-February this fiscal year

KARACHI: In line with its recent growth trend, cement sales in the country swelled to 20.9 million tons in the first eight months (Jul-Feb) of financial year 2015-16, up 17.4% compared to 17.8 million tons in the same period of last year, show statistics released by the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association.

Contrary to that, exports registered a massive fall of 22.54% at 3.8 million tons compared to 5 million tons a year ago.

Overall, the cement industry posted a rise of 8.71% in sales in July-February 2015-16 against the corresponding period of previous year. Total sales stood at 24.8 million tons as opposed to 22.8 million tons last year.

“Local cement demand remained strong in both January and February despite being the winter season. In this scenario, there is every possibility that the demand will further grow March onwards,” Sherman Securities’ analyst Sadiq Samin commented.

A steady economic growth and a better security situation were pulling in more investments in the construction sector, he said, adding new construction projects were continuously coming up in big cities, especially in Karachi, where the security situation had significantly improved over the last two years.

With an installed capacity of 45.6 million tons, the cement industry is running at more than 80% of the capacity, according to the manufacturers association.

In February alone, local sales rose an encouraging 29.8% while exports, for the first time since December 2014, showed a slight uptick of 1.47% compared to February 2015. Overall, sales jumped up 25.06% in February 2016.

In the month, domestic sales and exports were 2.981 million tons and 467,287 tons respectively compared to 2.297 million tons and 460,510 tons in February 2015.

Domestic sales in the northern region totalled 2.428 million tons as opposed to 1.885 million tons in February last year, up 28.8%. In the south, sales were 553,307 tons against 411,586 tons in the previous year, up 34.4%.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2016.

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