Germany: The member companies of the German Cement Works Association (VDZ) elected a new board of directors on 8 April 2014. After a three-year period of tenure, VDZ president, Gerhard Hirth of Schwenk Zement was again confirmed in office. HeidelbergCement's Christian Knell, Spenner Zement's Dirk Spenner and Cemex Deutchland's Eric Wittmann were elected as vice presidents.
"I would like to thank our member companies for their support over the previous years and I look forward to the pending tasks," said VDZ president Gerhard Hirth. After some difficult years for the German cement industry, he takes a positive view and expects the demand for cement to grow in 2014 due to the favourable trend in terms of building permissions for both residential and non-residential construction, as already indicated by the good figures from domestic cement deliveries during the few first months 2014.
"The agreement with regard to the EU state aid procedure on the Renewable Energies Act (EEG) surcharge is also a great relief for German cement manufacturers," said Hirth. The complete elimination of the so-called special equalisation scheme would have burdened companies with more than Euro30,000 of additional power costs per job. Hirth added, "However, the sharpened competition pressure from abroad, which can be seen from the increase in cement imports and the sinking exports, continues to present our industry with enormous challenges together with the compliance with climate protection goals and emission reductions."
The German Cement Works Association has campaigned for the interests and concerns of German cement manufacturers for more than 135 years. Currently, 20 German cement manufacturers are full members of the Association, which, together with a total of 49 cement plants and around 7300 employees, produce around 32Mt/yr cement and generate a turnover of Euro2.2bn.
