India: The board of directors of NCL Industries has approved plans for the establishment of two ready-mix plants at a cost of around US$0.8m. The plants will be located in Hyderabad, Telangana and Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. Both projects are scheduled for completion in early 2021. The units will be financed by bank loan.

Georgia: Georgia imported 296,000t cement from Azerbaijan from January to October 2020, a decline of 20.2% year-on-year. Data from the Georgian National Statistics Office (Geostat) and the Trend News Agency also shows that cement imports for this period cost US$14.5m.

Bangladesh: The Bangladesh Cement Manufacturers Association (BCMA) has called on the state-owned Bangladesh Bank (BB) to extend an ongoing moratorium period on the payment of loan instalments by another six months to mid-2021 in response to the negative economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The original loan window was schedule to end on 31 December 2020, according to the Dhaka Tribune newspaper. The association has also called for a fixed lending rate for non-government lenders due to rising costs. Local cement sales fell by 13% year-on-year in the five months from January to May 2020 due to a coronavirus-related lockdown that ended in late May 2020.

China: Companies increased total cement production in the first 11 months of 2020 by 1% year-on-year to 2.16Bnt from 2.14Bnt in the first 11 months of 2019. Xinhua News Agency has reported that estimated total building materials sector operating revenues rose by 1% to US$700bn. The sector’s estimated profit for the period rose by 3% to US$61.9bn.