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 new year came to a lively start with the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, by the US military on 3 January 2026. This is a column on the cement industry not geopolitics. Yet, the latter influences the former. There are implications here for the building materials sector that are worth discussing. Particularly regarding how states take over cement plants and what happens afterwards.

On Venezuela the first issue is what happens to the cement plants that were nationalised by the government in the late 2000s. The Chávez regime confiscated the Cemento Andino cement plant in 2006 from its owners, Colombia-based Cementos Argos. The government then formally expropriated the cement industry in 2008, taking control of plants run by Cemex, Holcim and Lafarge. Compensation was promised but this entered arbitration. Cemex, the owner of the largest number of plants, eventually reached an agreement in late 2011. The Venezuelan government paid US$600m in compensation and cancelled US$154m-worth of accounts payable from Cemex group subsidiaries to Cemex Venezuela. Subsequently, Cemex and Venezuela agreed to withdraw from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration process. Lafarge and Holcim reached deals in 2010. However, Holcim didn’t receive the final part of its compensation until 2014.

These agreements seem fairly clear-cut. Cement plants were taken, but the previous owners were eventually paid. However, this process started under duress. Two of the multinationals concerned, Cemex and Holcim, run major cement companies in the US. Nevertheless, these companies may benefit, should the US Trump administration decide it wants to change other parts of Venezuelan government policy in addition to the oil business. They may also want to lobby the current US government to take action in this direction. And, of course, the cement plants may re-enter the market if they are re-privatised. Subsequently, they may become available for merger and acquisition activity.

Cemex has form in this area as it also had similar problems in Cuba. It originally owned a cement plant in the country before it too was nationalised by the Castro regime. The Mexico-based company eventually let go of its formal interest in the business in the mid-1990s when the US introduced the so-called Helms-Burton Act, which targeted property confiscated by the Cuban government that had formally been owned by US citizens. The company told the US State Department at the time that it would "end its involvement with a confiscated American property in Cuba." Prior to this Cemex had formed a joint-venture with Unión de Empresas de Cemento in the early 1990s to create a company called Empresa Mixta Cementos Curazao (EMCC), which took control of the Mariel cement plant near to Havana. A decade later when relations between the US and Cuba thawed somewhat, Cemex’s CEO at the time, Fernando Gonzalez said that his company was still interested in returning to the country. Understandably though he expressed caution about this.

The point here is that Cuba, like Venezuela, is another left-leaning country in Latin America with a poor relationship with the US. Should the US government decide to take stronger foreign policy action here than it has previously there might well be implications for companies that historically used to own companies in Cuba.

Another relatively recent sector nationalisation in the region took place in 2010 in Bolivia. Here, the government took over a stake in Sociedad Boliviana de Cemento (SOBOCE) subsidiary Fábrica Nacional de Cementos (FANCESA) by supreme decree in 2010. SOBOCE and its shareholders subsequently fought for compensation. This one has been further confused by allegations of impropriety regarding how one of the private owners of SOBOCE originally obtained its share in the first place. Further controversy and disagreement followed when another shareholder, Mexico’s GCC, sold its share to Peru’s Grupo Gloria. Grupo Gloria filed an arbitration claim for US$260m against the Bolivian government in 2022.

Cement is an important commodity. Both it and the industry that manufactures it will always be of interest to governments in one way or another. Some of them may be tempted to take control of cement plants for strategic, economic, political, ideological or other reasons from time to time. And some of them may even do it! Disagreement, legal action and arbitration generally follow. In theory once an arbitration process finishes that should be the end of it. Yet interested parties may decide otherwise as the facts on the ground change. Corporate lawyers are likely to be watching the situation in Venezuela closely.

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.

We round off 2025 with the news that Holcim is preparing to buy a majority stake in Cementos Pacasmayo. This has implications for both the future of Holcim and the cement market in Peru. We explore this and more below.

This proposed acquisition starts to answer the question of what kind of company Holcim wants to be following the spin-off of Amrize, the North American business, in June 2025. The remainder of Holcim after the split consists of a large European segment and smaller divisions in Latin America and Asia, Middle East & Africa (AMEA). After the divestment of Lafarge Africa in Nigeria, the AMEA business now mainly covers North Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Bangladesh, China, New Zealand and the Philippines. In Latin America the group has subsidiaries in many countries, from Mexico south to Argentina. It also operates the Disensa construction materials retail chain. Holcim’s NextGen Growth 2030 strategy is targeted at sustainability and growth in AMEA and Latin America. The size of the business in Europe dictates the need for sustainability but the growth potential is elsewhere. Hence the attractiveness of deals like the one in Peru.

The acquisition of Cementos Pacasmayo follows a string of deals for Holcim in the country. Holcim purchased ready-mix concrete producer Mixercon and industrial minerals producer Comacsa for US$100m in mid-2024. Then in April 2025 it bought specialty buildings products manufacturer Compañía Minera Luren. The proposed Cementos Pacasmayo deal builds on all of this. Holcim has agreed to spend US$1.5bn to buy a 50.01% share. Completion of the transaction is expected in the first half of 2026 once regulatory approval is obtained. It will give Holcim control of Cementos Pacasmayo’s three integrated cement plants with a combined production capacity of 4.9Mt/yr, 28 ready-mix and precast concrete plants and 300 of the company’s DINO retail stores. Notably, Holcim appears to be paying around US$610/t for the new capacity. This is comparable to recent deals in North America.

The Holcim deal marks a change to the dominance of the cement market in Peru by local players. Previously, all the integrated clinker producers - UNACEM, Cementos Pacasmayo, Grupo Gloria and Cementos Inka - were owned by Peruvian companies. This started to change in 2024 when Holcim bought Comacsa and its white cement plant in Lima. Coincidentally, a US$17.5m fine imposed upon Grupo Gloria by National Institute for the Defence of Free Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) for anticompetitive behaviour was confirmed this week. The penalty was originally announced in 2023 in response to the alleged enforcement of exclusive supply contracts and restricted access to Cemento Yura plants. The subsidiary of Grupo Gloria continues to oppose the ruling.

Graph 1: Cement despatches in Peru, 2016 - 2015. Source: Asociación de Productores de Cemento (ASOCEM). Note: Figure estimated for 2025.

Data for November 2025 from Asociación de Productores de Cemento (ASOCEM) shows that despatches grew by 5.9% year-on-year from December 2024 to November 2025. Both imports and exports of cement and clinker are also up. Similarly, Cementos Pacasmayo has reported a good year so far in 2025. Its sales grew by 7% year-on-year to US$462m and its consolidated earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 4.6% to US$121m in the first nine months of 2025. This was attributed to higher sales for infrastructure-related projects and an increase in bagged cement demand.

The cement market in Peru has bounced back strongly following the Covid-19 epidemic. There was a dip in 2023 and 2024 but the market stayed at higher levels than the late 2010s despite this. Further growth has now returned and more is expected in the future. This may explain why Holcim has agreed to pay serious money to buy a cement company in Peru. As the business in Europe adapts to sustainability it is looking to expand elsewhere. Latin America is the obvious candidate to build on the existing business. Locally in Peru, this deal will change the status quo and it will be fascinating to observe how the market evolves in coming years.

Global Cement Weekly will return on Wednesday 7 January 2026