Egypt: The Industrial Development Authority (IDA) has not received any requests for 11 cement plants licenses offered since early 2017. Sources quoted by the Al-Mal newspaper reveal that despite eight local and foreign companies purchasing statements of work by the end of 2017, there has been little interest in the licences.

The IDA offered 14 cement licenses in 2016 to build plants or expand operations in nine governorates. Three licences were sold to SVC, Elsewedy Cement and Egyptian Cement respectively for US$28m in 2016. The remaining licences for Minya, Sohag, Qena, Aswan, New Valley, Matrouh, Suez and South Sinai were re-offered in 2017. Oversupply of cement in the country is estimated to be 30Mt/yr.

Azerbaijan: Cement production rose by 243% year-on-year to 2.88Mt in 2017. Data from the State Statistics Committee showed that the overall value of building materials produced increased by nearly half to US$333m in the period, according to the Trend News Agency.

Peru: The Peruvian cement industry finished 2017 with rises in production and despatches in December 2017. Production rose by 13% year-on-year to 0.898Mt from 0.886Mt and total despatches rose by 1.5% to 0.88Mt from 0.86Mt, according to data from Asociación de Productores de Cemento (Asocem).

Overall, the year couldn’t overcome a poor first half negatively impacted upon by flooding caused by El Niño Costero in early 2017. Production fell by 1.1% to 9.98Mt from 10.1Mt and despatches fell by 1.2% to 9.92Mt from 10Mt. Despite this imports rose by 21% to 0.62Mt from 0.51Mt leading to a slight total increase of despatches and imports.

India: Binani Cement has received six bids in its sale process. Offers were received from UltraTech Cement, JSW Cement, Ramco Cement, HeidelbergCement India, Dalmia Cements and a pair of Indian investors, according to the Daily News & Analysis newspaper. The bids ranged from around US$630m to US$940m. However, each bid came with various clauses that made the committee of creditors refer them to a consultancy for evaluation.