Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement has reported that its income rose by 4% year-on-year to US$54.3m in the first six months of 2013 from US$52.2m in the same period in 2012. The Kazak cement producer attributed the increase to a rise in prices in an interim financial statement.
Steppe Cement reported a profit before tax of US$3.82m for the period, up from US$391,000 in the same period in 2012. However, sales volumes declined by 8% to 0.56Mt from 0.62Mt. In its statement the cement producer confirmed that it had committed to spend US$7.7m on renovating its production line #5