Displaying items by tag: Export

Turkey: Total cement exports raised nearly US$1bn in revenue in 2020. Tamer Saka, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Turk Cement, told the Anadolu Agency that the country exported 30Mt in 2020 making it the world’s second largest cement exporter. He added that the local sector has a production capacity of 100Mt/yr. "The sector has been selling cement to important big projects in the US and they prefer Turkey because of both price and quality,” said Saka.

Pakistan: The Ministry of Commerce has advised the government that a concessionary rate for cement companies for the supply of electricity would reduce costs and increase international competitiveness. The Business Recorder newspaper has reported that the ministry proposed the measure due to the industry’s ‘immense’ potential for exports. In the 2020 financial year, the country exported US$266m-worth of cement. The ministry said that the current government’s policies would cause this to ‘substantially’ increase.

Saudi Arabia: Domestic cement sales in November 2020 were 4.8Mt, up by 17% year-on-year from November 2019. Mubasher News has reported that Saudi cement exports fell by 6% to 179,000t from 192,000t. Clinker exports rose by 85% to 490,000t. The national clinker inventory fell for a seventh consecutive month, to 38Mt.

In November 2020 Saudi Arabia produced 5.0Mt of cement and 4.3Mt of clinker.

Pakistan: Cement dispatches in the five months to 30 November 2020, the first five months of the 2021 financial year, were 24Mt, up by 17% year-on-year from 20Mt over the corresponding period of the 2020 financial year. Data from the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) shows that exports grew by 22% to 4.4Mt from 3.6Mt. The Nation newspaper has reported that November 2020’s dispatches were up by 4% year-on-year to 4.5Mt from 4.3Mt, while domestic demand rose by 6% to 3.7Mt from 3.5Mt. Five-month demand also rose, by 16% to 19Mt from 17Mt.

Algeria: Groupe des Ciments d'Algérie (GICA) has completed the export of 41,000t of clinker to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Algeria Press Service has reported that the company exported the clinker, produced at the Hadjar Soud (SCHS) cement plant, from the port of Annaba.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Youcef Merabet said, “Hadjar Soud cement plant, which operates two production lines totalling 0.9Mt/yr of cement production capacity, will promote its exports in 2021 especially as the demand for clinker will exceed 200,000t.”

Vietnam: The General Department of Vietnam Customs has reported total cement and clinker exports in the first ten months of 2020 of 31.6Mt, up by 19% year-on-year from 26.5Mt in the corresponding period of 2019. The Viet Nam News newspaper has reported that the value of exports rose by 7% to US$1.78bn. China bought 18Mt, worth US$611m, corresponding to 57% by volume and 34% by value of Vietnam’s cement and clinker exports.

In October 2020 Vietnam exported 3.58Mt of cement, down by 18% month-on-month from 4.37Mt in September 2020, at a total value of US$142m, down by 12% from US$160m.

Last week’s financial results from Çimsa contained a glimmer of hope for the Turkish cement market. Its net sales grew by 27% year-on-year to Euro175m in the first nine months of 2020 and operating profit more than doubled. Crucially, the balance between domestic and export sales tilted back a little toward the local market at a 55/45 ratio rather than 40/60 for the same period in 2019. Oyak Cement, another of the larger local producers, reported a similar rise in sales also. Akçansa Çimento, the joint venture between Sabancı Holding and HeidelbergCement, saw its sales fall slightly so far in 2020 but its profit grew. These financial results are all surprising given the currency and debt crisis the country faced in 2018 and now coronavirus in 2020.

Graph 1: Domestic and export cement sales in Turkey, January – July 2017 – 2020. Source: Turkish Cement Manufacturers’ Association (TÇMB)

Graph 1 above shows the general picture of the Turkish cement industry for the first seven months of each year to put the data so far in 2020 into context. The general Turkish economy faced problems in the middle of the year when the value of the Turkish Lira dropped sharply in mid-2018 and interest rates rose sharply. Subsequently, annual cement sales fell by over 20% year-on-year to 56.5Mt in 2019. A couple of weeks ago the Turkish Cement Manufacturers’ Association (TÇMB) said that the sector started 2020 optimistically with a recovery in January 2020. Coronavirus then hit, causing a contraction in the domestic market for the next four months. However, the construction market picked up again in June 2020 and this is expected to have continued into August 2020.

The cement sector previously pivoted to exports strongly with nearly a 50% bump up in exports to 11Mt in 2019. 2020 has been similar so far for the export market with a 40% rise year-on-year from January to July 2020 to around 9Mt. Much of these exports have gone to the US with local media and the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) reporting that the North American country took 18% of Turkey’s Euro840m cement exports from January to September 2020. Focusing on international trade has not come without a price though. In September 2020 the Ukrainian government started an investigation into alleged dumping of cement by Turkish producers. Following a complaint by local producers, the Interdepartmental Commission for International Trade (ICIT) determined that: “imports were made to an extent and under conditions such that they may cause material injury to the domestic producer.” The results of the investigation remain to be seen, but Ukraine had no qualms in 2019 about slapping tariffs onto cement imports from Russia, Belarus and Moldova.

All of this leaves the Turkish cement producers relying, much as previously, on the export market to hold up sales while the domestic market recovers to 2018 levels. This is becoming riskier, given the growing number of rivals exporting cement around the world, particularly from around the Mediterranean, and with more countries like Egypt hoping to do likewise. Yet as long as favourite destinations like the US and Israel keep buying, Turkey should be okay. At home, the question remains whether the growth seen post-coronavirus measures in the spring is a sign of economic recovery or merely pent up demand. The country’s initial coronavirus response was praised internationally but signs of a second wave are present. Meanwhile the International Monetary Fund (IMF) confirmed in October 2020 its earlier forecast of a 5% drop in gross domestic product (GDP) for Turkey in 2020. Much of the rest of the world is facing similar contractions in output or worse in 2020 but starting the year from a poor economic position is not enviable.

Iran: Cement production rose by 14.4% year-on-year to 35.6Mt in the first half of the local calendar year that started in March 2020 from 31.1Mt in the same period in the previous year. The sector exported 5.8Mt of cement with a value of US$128m to 28 countries according to the Mehr News Agency. India, Afghanistan, Russia, Iraq, Qatar, Kenya, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, China and Oman were among the export destinations of cement.

Bolivia/Paraguay: The Bolivian-Paraguayan Binational Chamber of Commerce & Industry is working with Bolivia-based Fábrica Nacional de Cemento (Fancesa) to export cement to Paraguay via the Parana – Paraguay Rivers Inland Waterway. The organisation is also trying to promote exports from the new Empresa Publica Productiva Cementos de Bolivia’s (ECEBOL) integrated cement plant at Caracollo in Oruro, according to the Agencia Boliviana de Información. Local Bolivian cement producers faced production stoppages from March to May 2020 due to coronavirus-related restrictions.

Turkey: Çimsa’s net sales grew by 27% year-on-year to Euro175m in the first nine months of 2020. Its operating profit more than doubled to Euro37.1m. Local sales grew faster than export sales in the reporting period but export revenue remains greater than domestic revenue. Chief executive officer (CEO) Umut Zenar reflected this when he praised the company’s strong export performance despite the challenges posed by coronavirus.