2026 has begun as the year of the ‘underdeveloped’ cement market, with new cement plant projects underway from Bangladesh to Zimbabwe. Only one industry announced two new cement plant projects: Afghanistan – which only had three plants to begin with!

The plants, when operational, will be the 1.1Mt/yr Yatīm Taq plant in Jowzjan Province and 1Mt/yr Aliabad plant in Kunduz Province. Both provinces lie in Afghanistan’s northern borders, opposite Turkmenistan and Tajikistan respectively, with the new plants situated in their mountainous interiors, 320km apart from one another.

The Aliabad and Yatīm Taq plants diverge in the matter of funding: Aliabad is a joint Afghan-Tajik-Chinese venture, including two separate Chinese parties. Meanwhile, Yatīm Taq is a foreign enterprise. Türkiye’s local consul general announced the investment on 14 January 2026. We can fill in the details with the help of an earlier announcement from October 2024: Türkiye-based 77 Inşaat concluded a deal to build a US$163m cement plant at the same location. This would appear to be a match and supplies us a best estimate of a price tag for the Yatīm Taq plant – though plans do change.

Table 1 (below) lists all on-going cement plant builds in Afghanistan as reported in the Global Cement News to date, with the latest announced projects at the top.

Table 1: Current cement plant projects in Afghanistan.

Few plants have publicly stated commissioning dates: Ghori (#3) was on schedule for April 2027, per plant head Shafiullah Wahidi, speaking on 30 October 2025; Shurandam (#8) had been due in October 2025. Elsewhere, estimates include ‘in the near future’ (Yatīm Taq cement plant, in October 2024). Considering how unlike anything previously achieved in the Afghan cement sector these undertakings are, a little vagueness is understandable.

Besides the Jabal Saraj plant in Parwan Province (commissioned: 1944) and Ghori I plant in Baghlan Province (1962), Afghanistan’s youngest plant is the Soviet-era Ghori II. It began construction using a US$42m Czechoslovakian loan in 1986, and reportedly never reached its intended capacity before further works stalled indefinitely in 1989.¹ Three decades of war brought Soviet and subsequent US-led coalition withdrawals and precipitated a complete takeover by the Taliban in 2021. The latest tranche of new-builds belong to a different generation both technologically and in the life of Afghanistan.

In addition to the age difference, and connected to it, is the matter of size. Ghori II, Ghori I and Jabal Saraj, in descending capacity order, command 400,000t/yr, 200,000t/yr and 30,000t/yr. The above projects in Table 1, if fully realised, will raise the national installed capacity by a multiple of 14.

The new, billion-dollar Afghan cement industry is partly being grafted onto the old: when commissioned in 2027, the Ghori project (#3 in Table 1) will be the 1.8Mt/yr Ghori III plant, part of an expanded 2.4Mt/yr complex. In October 2025, the Ghori I and Ghori II plants more than doubled combined production to 700t/day, corresponding to a capacity utilisation of 43% across the existing complex.

Meanwhile, the Jabal Saraj project (#4) brings together local investors Alfala ul Alami and Awfi Bahram and Qatar-based Al-Maham International Group for a 1.1Mt/yr expansion of the country’s smallest plant, up to 1.13Mt/yr. After this, the joint venture plans to further triple capacity, up by another 2.2Mt/yr, to 3.33Mt/yr, turning the plant into Afghanistan’s largest. The last update on the project emerged back in January 2025: the first phase of exploration work was underway.

To call Afghanistan an underdeveloped cement market is not to dismiss its part in the global cement industry. The country exports coking coal, including to neighbouring Pakistan. Following the closure of the Afghan-Pakistan border amid deteriorating relations in October 2025, northern Pakistani cement producers began to rely on imports from Indonesia or Africa for their coal supply. The loss of the Pakistan coal market ‘heavily’ impacted Afghan economic growth.²

Afghanistan’s population was 42.6m in 2024, up by 3% year-on-year and by 30% decade-on-decade.³ The growing market is a target for Iranian, Tajik and Uzbek producers – the last of which shipped 273,000t of cement there in the first nine months of 2025. Afghanistan was formerly the destination for 7% of Pakistan’s cement exports, contributing 10% of all sales for Cherat Cement and 6% for Fauji Cement in 2025.

All that was needed for the industrial transformation of domestic cement production was investment. In 2026, on the 40th anniversary of the Ghori II plant’s Prague-backed groundbreaking, funding no longer flows from Europe – nor under the auspices of a foreign invasion. Instead, it lies along a new, financial axis between China and West Asia. Following the announcement of the Aliabad project on Monday 2 February 2026, operators from five foreign countries will compete in the Afghan cement sector as its new plants come online, beginning any time now.

There are difficulties: Afghanistan is landlocked. Its regime (which, uniquely in the world, has banned education for girls beyond the age of 12) gives rise to issues for producers’ global market access. A complete reliance on coal will also hamper efforts to realise international standards. There are also creative solutions, however. One country recognises the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government, and also happens to be looking for a market for its oil, after losing India on 2 February 2025.⁴ That country is Russia.

Afghanistan’s mid-2020s cement plant-building drive has spawned previously unheard-of partnerships across cultural chasms, all under conditions of informal international relations. It presents a vision of this erstwhile peripheral nation of South, West and Central Asia as a connector of them all in an emergent super-region. Naïve expectations have gone to die in Afghanistan in the past; on the other hand, this collaboration with nations as diverse as China and Türkiye may have a liberalising effect on the political culture of Afghanistan and transform its cement sector, if not in this generation, then in time.

References

1 Afghan Biographies, ‘Ghori Cement Factory,’ October 2023, https://afghan-bios.info/index.php?option=com_afghanbios&id=2301&task=view&total=3600&start=1089&Itemid=2#

2 TRT World, ‘Why is Taliban relying on cement production to achieve Afghan self-reliance,’ 26 March 2024, https://www.trtworld.com/article/17519719

3 World Bank Data, ‘Population, total - Afghanistan,’ August 2025, ‘https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?end=2024&locations=AF&start=1960

4 Reuters, ‘US to cut tariffs on India to 18%, India agrees to end Russian oil purchases,’ 2 February 2026, www.reuters.com/world/india/trump-says-agreed-trade-deal-with-india-2026-02-02/

Following a medium-term lull since the Covid-19 outbreak at the start of the decade, 2025 brought increased cement shipments across multiple regions. Local associations have been publishing their data for the year, or the latest complete period, over the past three weeks. Here is a selected summary of markets that have released data from around the world. Note that this does not include the largest cement markets such as China, India or the US. Table 1 (below) lists them in order of recorded shipments.

Table 1: Cement shipment volumes for select countries in 2025 (Türkiye estimate based on nine month figures). Source: Global Cement News and local associations.

The most pronounced growth was in Asia, and no reporting country despatched more cement than Vietnam. The industry maintains a tight grip on its 75Mt domestic market, which rebounded in 2025, up by 13% year-on-year amidst new, increased infrastructure spending, following multiple years at 57-63Mt/yr. Exports underwent a similar surge, up by 28% to 37Mt, after years of 29-31Mt/yr. The government helped the industry to carve out a space in its target markets by halving the export tax on clinker down to 5% from May 2025 to December 2026. A major challenge for producers in 2026 is their own high energy costs. These are prompting increased investments in efficiency, as well as price rises.

Exports were the faster-growing portion of Türkiye’s cement shipments in 2025, contributing growth of 13%, to 11.5Mt. Production increased in line with shipments – up by 7%, to 68.2Mt. In Kazakhstan, meanwhile, an ongoing residential construction boom increased domestic cement consumption by 22%, to 14.5Mt. Imports filled the supply gap, increasing by 43% to 1Mt, while exports dropped by 22%, to 700,000t.

Kyrgyzstan lifted a temporary cement import ban in May 2025 and received 28,700t of cement from China throughout 2025, more than five times its Chinese cement imports in 2024. The construction of a new China-Uzbekistan railway through Kyrgyzstan continued throughout 2025, for scheduled commissioning in 2029. Tunnelling for the line, which is expected to ‘supercharge’ Kyrgyz industry, commenced in April 2025. Neighbouring Uzbekistan’s National Statistics Committee previously reported that Kyrgyzstan imported 489,000t of Uzbek cement in the first nine months of 2025.

Growth in cement shipments was single-figure across reporting South American countries, with the sharpest increase recorded in Peru. Argentinian national cement shipments signalled ‘recovery,’ according to its Association of Portland Cement Manufacturers: following declines of 3% and 24% in 2023 and 2024, shipments increased by 6%. Monthly despatches throughout 2025 ‘generally’ exceeded those in 2024, including during a ‘usual seasonal slowdown’ in late 2025. Despatches eventually dropped ‘slightly’ year-on-year in December 2024. Argentinian national cement consumption also grew by 6% year-on-year in 2025, to 10Mt.

Brazil’s 4% increase in shipments in 2025 was in line with the previous year’s growth, though 8% below historical peak shipments of 73Mt in 2014. In 2025, regional despatches grew by 7% from Northeast Brazil, by 4% from North Brazil, by 3% from both South Brazil and Southeast Brazil and by 2% from Midwest Brazil. National Cement Industry Union (SNIC) president Paulo Camillo Penna noted that historically low unemployment and historically high average incomes helped to offset the effects of slowing GDP growth and ‘tight’ monetary conditions, with interest rates also at a two-decade high. Household indebtedness affected 49% of disposable income, and an historic 80.6m Brazilians had defaulted on debts in December 2025.

The Swiss cement association Cemsuisse welcomed a return to growth in 2025, following a decline in cement shipments in 2024. Growth was most pronounced in the fourth quarter of 2025 – up by 6% year-on-year. A favourable interest rate reportedly buoyed residential construction, offsetting a ‘challenging’ environment in the infrastructure segment, characterised by ‘downsizing and delays’ to projects.

Serbia’s cement sector reportedly failed to capture its intended share of the domestic market in 2025. The government responded with temporary quotas on imported cement, above which imports will be subject to a 50% tariff. The quotas allow for a total 250,350t of regular cement imports, apportioned to export partners based on their volumes over the past five years, with the largest quotas going to the EU, Türkiye, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Albania. The government hopes that the move will help to ‘stabilise’ domestic production.

In Russia, market leader Cemros suspended operations at its Belgorod and Ulyanovsk cement plants and reduced production at its Lipetsk cement plant on 20 January 2026 in response to a local market contraction. The producer reported that cement imports from neighbouring Belarus and across the Caspian Sea from Iran rose in 2025.

Morocco’s cement shipments grew by 8% in 2025, with data from the Ministry of National Territorial Development showing that 8.02Mt (54%) of cement went into retail distribution, 3.78Mt (26%) into ready-mix concrete production and 1.53Mt (10%) into precast concrete production. December 2025 reversed the growth trend of the year, with a decline of 15% from December 2024 levels.

As to what the foregoing retrospective means for cement in 2026, Switzerland’s Cemsuisse director Stefan Vannoni predicted a ‘positive year ahead,’ based on the ‘favourable trend right up to the end of 2025.’ Other markets from Argentina to Morocco, however, failed to end on a high, or even went into reverse gear. As noted in Paulo Camillo Penna’s comments on the Brazilian market, there are also currency considerations. This is especially pertinent with regard to the weakening US Dollar, which threatens the cement trade’s supply of hard currency. Should a financial crisis ensue, the public infrastructure and private residential expenditure driving 2025’s boom markets may rapidly evaporate in 2026.

The Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (CEMAP) revealed this week that it has nearly completed its decarbonisation roadmap. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been proactive as a region in drawing up plans to decarbonise its cement sector. Notably, the Thai industry released its roadmap in 2024 and the ASEAN Federation of Cement Manufacturers (AFCM) released its 2035 AFCM Decarbonisation Roadmap in December 2025.

In the Philippines the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), announced the launch of the development process for the Philippines Cement Decarbonisation Roadmap in October 2025. At the time, it said that the local sector produced over 27Mt of cement in 2024 from a production capacity of 53Mt/yr. That last figure is likely to include cement grinding plants since the Global Cement Directory 2025 placed local integrated capacity at 32Mt/yr. Little information on what this roadmap might contain has emerged so far, but CEMAP president Reinier Dizon told local press this week that increasing the use of alternative fuels was going to be the main action plan.

Clear figures for the alternative fuels thermal substitution rates (TSR) in the cement industry in the Philippines are hard to find publicly. However, Cemex Philippines reported a 28% TSR in 2022. There have been plenty of news stories demonstrating activity though. For example, Holcim Philippines signed a deal with Prime Infrastructure Capital in November 2025 for the supply of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) to its cement plants in Bulacan and La Union. Holcim Philippines could be seen preparing for this back in mid-2024 when it said it was investing US$6.5m to upgrade the La Union plant and increase the use of alternative fuels and raw materials to 40%. Other companies have also been busy, including the recycling arm of Republic Cement, Ecoloop, which stated that it had used 110,000t of plastic sachets in 2023 as fuel in its kilns. Similarly, Cemex Philippines and its Regenera waste management subsidiary struck a deal with snack food and beverage brand Oishi in 2024 to take its plastic waste. Cemex Philippines was subsequently divested and rebranded as Concreat Holdings Philippines later that same year.

When the AFCM launched its 2035 AFCM Decarbonisation Roadmap, it described it as the world’s first regional decarbonisation strategy for the cement sector. The public version doesn’t contain a TSR target but it does say that alternative fuels are expected to cut CO₂ emissions by 15.4Mt by 2035. The focus is on biomass, refuse-derived fuel and industrial waste.

One of the leaders in the region has been the Thai Cement Manufacturers Association (TCMA). It published the Thailand 2050 Net Zero Cement & Concrete Roadmap in late 2024. It currently has an alternative fuels TSR target of 54% by 2050. The TCMA said at the 26th Technical Symposium & Exhibition of the ASEAN Federation of Cement Manufacturers (AFCM), which took place in Kuala Lumpur in late 2024, that the country was on course for a TSR of 34% in 2024. Both Siam Cement Group (SCG) and Siam City Cement (INSEE) reported TSRs of just below 29% in 2024. Asia Cement’s Pukrang plant had a TSR of 27% in 2025, for example, and is now aiming at above 60% by 2030. For more on this read the report in the February 2026 issue of Global Cement Magazine.

Meanwhile, also this week, the NITI Aayog public policy think tank of the Government of India, published its roadmap for the local cement sector too. This is on a similar scale to the ASEAN Roadmap as a whole given the large size of the cement industry in India. It is the second largest in the world. The key takeaway on alternative fuels is a target of 20% RDF usage by 2030. The other major point is that this roadmap aims at net zero by 2070.

The summary for most of these roadmaps for the cement industry is to take the tested, ‘easier’ and cheaper measures first. So, increase the use of alternative fuels, reduce the clinker factor through the use of supplementary cementitious materials and then finish the job with carbon capture. The devil is in the detail though with wide regional differences on how to approach the first two, even between cement plants in the same country. The final one, carbon capture, is barely tested commercially. In 2024 Cement Europe (formerly Cembureau) reported that the European Union had a mean TSR of 58%. Cement plants in both the ASEAN and India have great potential to increase their TSRs and this is being shown in the roadmaps.

The 1st CemFuels Asia Conference takes place in Bangkok on 2 - 3 February 2026

Medcem said this week that it had commissioned a new terminal in Trieste. The timing sends a message because the European Union’s (EU) Cross Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) started its full effect on 1 January 2026. This means that it now potentially costs more to import cement into the EU. So why would a non-EU cement importer want to start running import terminals?

Türkiye-based Medcem ended 2025 with the announcement that a new terminal in Antwerp, Belgium, had started operation. That was followed this week by the commissioning of the new terminal in Trieste, Italy. The latter site was built with Seadock, a local subsidiary of Samer Group. The unit has a storage capacity of 11,000t and is expected to process up to 120,000t/yr. Notably, the terminal will unload cargo via an underground pipeline connected to the quay and stored in nearby silos before despatch across the EU.

When Global Cement Magazine spoke to Mehmet Ali Ceylan, the CEO of Medcem in 2024, he described his company as an “export-oriented” one. At the time its main markets for cement were the US, the Middle East and the UK. The EU was the principal destination for clinker. In the UK it built a terminal in Sheerness in 2024 and is expected to commission others, in Glasgow and Liverpool, in 2026.

CBAM went live at the start of 2026 following a two-year transition phase. The simple version is that importers of certain goods including cement pay a fee for the emissions intensity of the product and then an EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) cost. However, the actual calculation is much more complicated than this and the European Commission has been continually tweaking the system. In mid-December 2025 it emerged that the commission had lowered its benchmark emissions intensity figures for various commodities, putting up the cost to import. Grey cement clinker's benchmark, for example, dropped to 0.666/t CO₂ from 0.693/t CO₂. The commission also set default emissions values to calculate CBAM costs if producers failed to disclose their actual emissions. All of this generally favours larger importers that understand the system, can verify their emissions and can still compete on price. Nor should industrial suppliers feel left out, since the commission also decided to expand the scope of the CBAM to include industrial machinery from the start of 2028.

Last time Global Cement Weekly looked at the effects of CBAM in Europe, the conclusion was that Türkiye was the most exposed to the new scheme as the biggest source of imports but that the emissions intensity of its cement was considered to be fairly competitive. Countries in North Africa faced differing consequences but there would be some potential losers. Ukraine, in particular, was likely to face issues with exports to the EU under the new scheme. Recent figures from Argus suggest that trading prices for cement from Türkiye and Egypt would suffer against those from Pakistan and Vietnam. However, this does not take into account the new CBAM costs.

Graph 1: Sources of cement and clinker imports to the EU in 2024. Source: Eurostat/Cement Europe

Naturally, a number of countries complained when the full version of the CBAM started. A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce called it “unfair and discriminatory” and said that the country might consider countermeasures. The India-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), warned the Times of India newspaper that the move would shift the decarbonisation costs on to developing countries, including India. It added that the scheme could generate €1.5bn/yr for the EU by 2028 at the expense of the Global South.

Medcem’s investment in terminals within the EU suggests that it is confident enough to invest in operations in the region even as CBAM goes live. The three sites in the UK will be subject to the UK’s parallel scheme, due for introduction from 2027 onwards. It is also possible that Medcem is using its new terminals to increase its competitiveness under the new scheme. Medcem may also have an advantage, compared to an independent trader, that it can more easily verify the emissions at its plants. Generally, as mentioned above, each country’s share of cement and clinker imports to Europe looks set to shift as the new tax impacts the market. Watch this space.

Finally, spare a thought for those places in the EU but outside of Europe geographically. The French West Indies, for example, is part of the EU and subject to CBAM despite being in the Caribbean. Cement producers in Martinique complained to local press at the start of the year that prices will need to rise due to the necessity of importing clinker from outside of the EU.