China: Huaxin Cement’s sales and profit fell in the first half of 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak. It said that the health situation, “resulted in grave insufficient demand in the markets of main products and rapid slump in price, coupled with restrictions on personnel flow and traffic, equipment maintenance plan was affected severely.” The cement producer disposed of medical waste for free at its Yangxin, Wuxue and Yichang plants before the market recovered in the second quarter.
Huaxin’s sales revenue fell by 12.7% year-on-year to US$1.84bn in the first half of 2020 from US$2.11bn in the same period in 2019. Its net profit dropped by 29% to US$330m from US$463m. Cement sales and concrete volumes declined by 8% to 32.7Mt. The company also started clinker production at its 2Mt/yr Jizzakh cement plant in Uzbekistan in June 2020.
