LAHORE: The cement industry has recorded its highest ever dispatches at 3.584 million tons during March 2016 with 19.13 percent increase in domestic consumption and 20.58 percent increase in exports, the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) data said on Tuesday. A spokesperson of APCMA said the growth in cement exports in March was encouraging, as this enabled the industry to utilise almost 95 percent of its installed capacity.
Buoyancy in the domestic market has remained the main feature of cement growth, the turnaround in exports is an icing on the cake.
Cement dispatches to domestic markets during the month of March 2016 increased to 3.05 million tons compared with 2.56 million tons during the same month last year.
The exports that dropped by double digits in the first seven months of this fiscal and showed a marginal growth of 1.47 percent during February 2016, registered an impressive growth of 20.58 percent during March 2016 as the quantity increased to 534,804 tons compared to 443,539 tons during March 2015. Total dispatches during March 2016 were 3.583 million tons compared to 3 million tons during same month last year showing a healthy increase of 19.34 percent.
The domestic sales in north during March 2016 were 2,460,109 tons compared to the domestic sales of 2,074,322 tons during the same month last year showing growth of 18.6 percent.
The local sales in the south region were 588,898 tons compared to the local sales of 485,088 tons during March 2015, showing growth of 21.4 percent. This depicts that the economic activities have picked up in all the regions of the country.
Analysing the overall situation of the current fiscal, the statistics show that during July 2015 to March 2016, cement industry dispatched 23.94 million tons in the local markets, posting a healthy growth of 17.69 percent compared with local dispatches during the same period last fiscal that were 20.34 million tons.
Exports from the country declined by 19.02 percent to 4.406 million tons compared with exports during the first nine months of last year that were 5.44 million tons.
The overall situation during the first 3 quarters of the current fiscal year showed 9.95 percent growth compared to the same period last fiscal, as total dispatches increased to 28.34 million tons against 25.78 million tons from July 2014 to March 2015.
The spokesman of APCMA regretted that despite utilisation of around 95 percent capacity, the industry was being accused of not using their idle capacity and of forming a cartel to keep the rates high. He said the two factors that prove this accusation baseless were the utilisation of installed capacity to maximum and the difference in maximum retail prices in different regions of the country that ranges from Rs482 per bag to Rs550 per bag. “The industry is neither managing dispatches nor the prices and is operating on the principles of free market economy,” he asserted.
The cement industry of Pakistan is rigorously working on expansion plans following continuous local consumption owing to the ongoing mega construction activities under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
The industry has full faith in the economy of the country and it has kept on increasing its capacity on regular basis, while further increase in capacity to the tune of around 26,000 tons per day is expected to be available after the commencement of DG Khan, Lucky, Cherat and Attock Cement expansions. Other major players are also working on expansion plans.