Kenya: The Trade Ministry has abandoned plans to repeal a controversial 17.5% levy on imported clinker, ending a long-term dispute with the country’s president William Ruto. Trade Cabinet Secretary Lee Kinyanjui said the ministry has dropped earlier plans to repeal the levy, citing increased local clinker production.

The government introduced the 17.5% levy on clinker in July 2023, with clinker imports falling from 148,000t in 2023 to just 10,300t in 2024. The ministry had previously petitioned for the removal of the export and investment promotion levy on imported clinker, arguing that relying on heavily protected raw materials skewed industry competition and choked independent manufacturers who lacked clinker capacity. This position had contradicted president Ruto, who, in December 2025, indicated that Kenya had enough capacity to produce its own clinker.

Croatia: The opposition Most party is opposing the Croatian government's plan to burn some of the waste from an illegal dump at Gospić in Nexe’s cement plant in Našice. Speaking at a news conference outside the Nexe company's cement plant in Našice, Most MP Marin Miletić said that the government planned to burn 650t of waste in Slavonia and Istria that it classified as ‘non-hazardous.’ He questioned this classification, stating that the waste had been brought into Croatia illegally.

"Slavonians must not remain silent,” said Miletić. “Slavonians did not produce this waste and there is no justification for them to bear the consequences of the actions of the Italian and Croatian waste mafias and the political decisions that enabled them.”

Kenya: National Cement, a subsidiary of Devki Group that produces Simba Cement, is seeking environmental approval to build a 60MW wind farm in Kajiado County, southern Kenya. The proposed wind farm will include 38 turbines, internal access roads, underground and overhead electrical cabling and a substation, according to an environmental impact assessment. The new proposal follows the company’s commissioning of a 15MW power plant alongside its clinker operation between Merrueshi and Mbirikani in 2018 to lower the company’s electricity costs. It will secure power closer to the company’s manufacturing operations while increasing the share of renewable energy in its electricity supply. 

US: The Rhode Island Marine Trades Association Foundation (RIMTAF) has developed a pilot programme to test the use of decommissioned fibreglass boats in cement production. After removal of fuel, batteries and metal components, around 60t of hulls were cut and shredded at a facility in Johnson, Rhode Island, before being transported to Amrize’s Holly Hill cement plant in South Carolina.

When it enters the kiln, the resin in the hull-derived material acts as a fuel, partially replacing the conventional fuel used at the plant. The glass fibres contribute to the silica content in the clinker. The material was successfully accepted by the cement plant as both a fuel source and a raw material substitute. While 60t is a drop in the ocean, it is an important step towards a value-added reuse system for discarded fibreglass boat hulls, which are estimated to reach 200,000 every year in the US alone.