India: Gautam Adani, the chair of Adani Group, says his company has plans to double its cement production capacity to 140Mt/yr by the late 2020s and become the most profitable producer in the sector. In a speech made to mark the group’s US$6.5bn acquisition of Ambuja Cements and ACC, he anticipated that a rise in cement demand in India, due to economic growth and government infrastructure development, would lead to “significant” margin expansion, according to the Press Trust of India. He added that the transaction was the country’s largest ever in-bound merger and acquisition in the infrastructure and materials sector.

Adani explained the decision to enter the cement market was due to India’s growth potential in the cement market. He said that while India is the second largest producer of cement in the world, its per capita consumption is just 250kg compared to 1600kg of China. He also expected that long-term average growth in cement demand would be 1.2 to 1.5 times the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) due to government investments in infrastructure and housing.