Spain: Spain’s cement consumption in 2019 was 14Mt, up by 5.9% from 13Mt in 2018. Exports fell by 23% to 6.2Mt from 5.0Mt in 2018.

President of the national cement association Oficemen Víctor García Brosa attributed the demand growth to homebuilding but said that the housing market had a long way to go towards providing a reliable base for domestic cement production. “The 110,000 new homes that have started in 2019 represent half of the homes that were built annually before the global financial crisis,” he said. “For Spain, the real estate market should average between 180,000 and 200,000 new homes per year.” He estimated that cement consumption growth would slow to 2.0% year-on-year in 2020.

Belarus: Belarusian cement producers recorded production volumes of 4.7Mt in 2019, corresponding to capacity utilisation of over 100%. Volumes increased by 4.6% from 4.5Mt in 2018. The Arab Times has reported that the country imported 0.5Mt of cement with a value of US$28m. US$18m of this came from Russia, while a further US$3.7m, US$2.8m and US$2.0m came from Latvia, Ukraine and Turkey respectively.

On 6 February 2020 the State Council of Ministers reinstated protectionist licencing laws requiring importers of cement to have special permissions to bring cement from outside of the Eurasian Economic Union into the country. This affects all current sources of imported cement to Belarus apart from Russia.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement’s nine-month net profit over the period ending 31 December 2019 fell by 35% year-on-year to US$45.6m from US$70.3m over the corresponding period of 2018. Nine-month revenues were US$1.66bn, down by 3.3% year-on-year from US$1.71bn. Sumitomo Osaka Cement predicted revenues in the fiscal year ending 31 March 2020 of US$2.23bn, which would give it an estimated net profit of US$97.5m for the whole year, down by 27% from US$134m in the 2019 fiscal year.

India: Star Cement recorded a standalone net profit of US$6.43m in the period between 1 October 2019 and 31 December 2019, representing a decrease of 18% year-on-year from US$5.45m in the corresponding three-month period of 2018. The company attributed the decline to increased operating expenses, which rose by 16% year-on-year to US$51.9m from US$44.9m in 2019. Sales over the period rose by 6.9% year-on-year to US$60.1m from US$56.2m in the final quarter of 2018.