Russia: The Russian cement market remains unable to match its performance in 2007-2008. Although output grew by 15% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2012, Russian companies produced 'just' 9.61Mt of cement. Meanwhile cement prices continue to increase in the country but they are not expected to reach the pre-crisis levels before 2019.

In the first quarter of 2012 production climbed by 15% year-on-year to 9.61Mt according to an estimate made by CMPro Ltd, a Moscow-based company. By comparison in the first quarters of 2007and 2008, production exceeded 11Mt.

According to the President of Lafarge Cement, production in 2012 will rise by 10% against the 2011 level of 56.2Mt, as the market restores due to new construction and infrastructure projects. 2011 was a record year since 2007 as 63.2 million m2 of housing was commissioned. In line with this view Siberian Cement expects cement prices to increase by 12-15% in the summer of 2012 and the CEO of Sukholozhsktsementa Maksim Sotnikov believes that the annual price growth will reach 10%.

Less optimistically, the general director of Basecement Vyacheslav Shmatov said that cement imports are curbing the growth of prices on the domestic market. According to CMPro Ltd, in the first quarter of 2012 imports doubled year-on-year to 340,000t.