Displaying items by tag: Cement Manufacturers Association of Nepal

Nepal: The Cement Manufacturers Association of Nepal (CMAN) recorded average capacity utilisation across the local cement sector below 30% following the start of a national coronavirus lockdown that started in late April 2021. Despite the end of the Clockdown over the summer, demand is currently low due to an economic slowdown, according to the Kathmandu Post newspaper. It reported that three or four of the country’s 64 cement plants have shut down.

CMAN president Dhruba Thapa said, “There is a huge gap in output and demand in the market currently. Nepal's cement industry has a production capacity of 22Mt/yr, and this will rise to 25Mt/yr in the 2022 financial year. Demand reached around 9Mt in the 2021 financial year."

Nepal: A report by the Nepal Rastra Bank has estimated that Nepal will require 26Mt/yr of cement by the 2024 – 25 financial year due to large-scale infrastructure projects. However, current production before the coronavirus pandemic was around 7.5Mt/yr despite the country’s production capacity of 15Mt/yr, according to the Kathmandu Post newspaper. Domestic consumption is 9Mt with around 1.5Mt of demand supplied from imports, mainly from India. The report added that most of the large projects in Nepal used cement imported from India due to issues with certification, consistent quality and the inability of local producers to offer bulk supply. In 2019 the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies forecast that the country’s cement production capacity could increase to 20Mt/yr by the end of the 2023 – 24 year.

Dhruba Raj Thapa, president of the Cement Manufacturers Association of Nepal, said that the data in the report by the bank contained errors. He pointed out that the country has a cement production capacity of 22Mt/yr and that it is already self-sufficient in the commodity. He also refuted the claims that infrastructure projects prefer imported cement.