China: Anhui Conch returned to rising sales revenue and profit in 2016 after a problematic year in 2015 beset by a poor market for cement. Its revenue rose by 9.7% year-on-year to US$8.12bn in 2016 from US$7.40bn in 2015. Its sales volumes of cement and clinker rose by 8% to 277Mt. Its net profit rose by 14% to US$1.24bn from US$1.09bn. The group says that its adoption of a flexible marketing strategy for different regions and plants and a focus on lowering production costs delivered sales growth and operating savings. However, its full year results are in contrast to its ones for the first nine months of 2016, in which it reported small declines in its revenue and net profit.

During the year the cement producer finished building six clinker production lines at Yingjiangyunhan Cement and Yiyang Conch Cement and it completed 18 cement grinding plants at Wenshan Conch Cement and Ganzhou Conch Cement. In addition to purchased the assets of Anhui Chaodong Cement. Outside of China the group completed lines in Indonesia and Myanmar, started buildings projects in Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos and started early work on new projects in Russia and Myanmar. At the end of 2016 the group says it has a clinker and cement production capacity of 244Mt/yr and 313Mt/yr respectively. It also reported that it had completed 15 waste treatment projects by the end of the year to feed cement plant kilns with domestic waste.