It’s been a sobering week for the cement sector in South Korea with the release of sales data for the first half of 2025.
Data from the Korea Cement Association (KCA) shows that local shipments of cement fell by 17% year-on-year to 18.8Mt in the first half of the year. The last time half-year output was reported to be below 20Mt was in 1992. The association noted that a ‘severe’ construction recession had continued from 2024. An uptick in demand for building materials is anticipated in the second half of 2025 due to postponed construction work but it is expected to be limited by a forthcoming government budget. The association said that output for the whole of 2025 is forecast to be “significantly below 40Mt unless effective construction stimulus measures are available.”
Graph 1: Cement shipments in South Korea, 2019 - 2025. Source: Korea Cement Association.
20Mt of cement output marks a dividing line in the South Korea-based market in recent decades. Previous economic low points over the last 30 years include the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s and the 2008 financial crash triggered by the subprime market in the US. However, on neither occasion did half-year cement output in South Korea fall below 20Mt. The current situation is likely to be reflected in the financial results of the local manufacturers, when they are released later in August 2025, following poor first-quarter figures.
The general construction sector is facing a tough time, with construction companies facing a liquidity crunch as lending rules have been tightened. At the same time prices and labour costs are both reportedly up by 30% in the past three years. One reaction to this in Autumn 2024 was plans suggested by construction companies to import cement from China. This gained some support from the government, which said it was looking at ways to reduce costs, but then faced opposition in the National Assembly. It is unclear what has happened since then, although KCA figures show that imports of cement grew by 40% year-on-year to 384,000t in the second half of 2024.
The cement producers have reacted by shutting down production lines in some cases. In April 2025 local press reported that eight of the country’s 35 production lines had been shut down. Hanil Cement’s Danyang plant had reportedly suspended two of its six production lines. One additional kiln at Asia Cement’s Jecheon plant was preparing to be closed at this time, with the manager citing the difficulty of coping with a 70% capacity utilisation rate. This would have brought the site’s number of active lines down to two of four. Another unmentioned kiln also reportedly preparing to suspend operations would bring the total of inactive kilns up to 10.
As might be expected in this kind of business environment, mergers and acquisitions activity has started. Hanil Cement announced in mid-July 2025 that it was preparing to buy its subsidiary Hanil Hyundai Cement. The transaction is expected to cut costs of the newly combined company and yield other synergy effects.
With its high cement consumption per capita, the cement market in South Korea remains atypical compared to peer economies in East Asia and Europe. Consumption dropped after a peak in the 1990s but it remained high by international standards. Hence the outcry about a half-year cement output bigger than most European countries can manage in a year. The IMF predicts a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 0.8% in 2025 in South Korea, with a faster pickup of 1.8% in 2026. Construction levels are expected to remain sluggish into autumn and start recovering in 2026. General market trends in developed countries suggest that cement consumption will fall further in South Korea in coming decades, especially as sustainability trends embed. Cement sales in Japan, for example, have gradually been dwindling since the late 1990s. One question here is whether the cement market in South Korea can continue to hold its high level of consumption per capita. It remains to be seen.
