Bangladesh: HeidelbergCement officially inaugurated a new cement mill at its plant in the seaport of Chittagong on 12 January 2012. The ball mill, which cost approximately US$16m to construct, has a grinding capacity of about 0.8Mt/yr. Test runs of the new mill were conducted successfully at the end of 2011 and production started in the first week of January 2012.

"We are very pleased that we are able to officially inaugurate our state-of-the-art cement mill today," said Dr Bernd Scheifele, Chairman of the Managing Board at HeidelbergCement. "Bangladesh is an interesting market for HeidelbergCement. We expect the need for high quality cement to increase significantly in the coming years, especially due to new government infrastructure projects. With the new mill we are very well prepared for this growth in demand. The investment in Bangladesh is part of our long-term strategy to expand our cement capacities in attractive emerging markets by brownfield or greenfield projects."

The IMF forecasts a GDP growth of 6.1% for Bangladesh in 2012. The country currently has one of the lowest per capita cement consumption ratios in the world, but it is also one of the fastest growing markets.