Displaying items by tag: Prices

Myanmar: The Myanmar Cement Manufacturers Association held a coordination meeting at the Ministry of Industry in Nay Pyi Taw on 9 September 2025. Union Minister for Industry Charlie Than said that the Mandalay earthquake had damaged domestic cement plants, pushing up cement prices. However, he said that coordinated efforts between the association and relevant ministries meant that plants had quickly resumed operations and prices were returning to normal.

Egypt: The government has announced a series of measures to stabilise the cement market following a period of price increases, according to Ahram Online. Deputy Prime Minister for Industrial Development and Minister of Industry and Transport Kamel El-Wazir announced steps to boost production, limit exports and introduce transparent pricing.

At the end of August 2025, El-Wazir met with major cement producers, regulators and chambers of commerce and called for further price reductions, alongside continuous production, and said that eight idle production lines would be restarted. Local cement production reached 25.39Mt between January and July 2025, up from 23.3Mt a year earlier. With demand expected to grow both domestically and abroad, the government has signalled that it may issue new licences for cement factories. Among the government’s new measures are requiring companies to print the anticipated retail price on cement bags at least one month in advance to protect customers from sudden price fluctuations.

Egypt: The Egyptian government has frozen the implementation of an earlier decision to reduce cement production capacities following a two-month suspension that took place during May and June 2025. The move aims to increase local supply and curb prices, which have reportedly been rising since the start of 2025 due to a decline in demand.

Shaimaa Aboulmagd, commercial director at Misr Beni Suef Cement, said the decision is expected to bring prices down further and that many cement companies have already started to reduce prices.

Ahmed El-Zeiny, head of the building materials division at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, said the market is now anticipating price stabilisation due to increased supply, noting that the sector had recently faced reduced availability from higher exports and the closure of nine cement production lines.

On 9 June 2025 the Nepalese government announced the shock closure of the state-owned Udayapur Cement Industry, which operates the 0.4Mt/yr Jaljale cement plant in the high-altitude Terhathum District.¹ No express reason for the closure has been forthcoming. A little digging is therefore required…

Nationally, Nepal is home to 13 integrated and 16 grinding plants,² which sounds like a lot. However, with a total capacity of 12.3Mt/yr between them, each plant – many of which are quite aged and in need of modernisation - has an average capacity of 0.4Mt/yr. Amid chronic low demand, the capacity utilisation rate in some regions is as low as 40-50%.³

The planned closure of the Udayapur Cement Industry is all the more surprising considering that it only resumed operations on 24 April 2025 following the suspension of operations at the end of November 2024. The plant resumed production at 400t/day, half of its capacity, despite a US$42m upgrade as recently as February 2022 that had expanded it from 0.3Mt/yr to 0.4Mt/yr!

Upon re-opening in April 2025, the plant said that it had sufficient coal to maintain operations for at least 12 days and that it had a secure supply of electricity from the state-owned Nepal Electricity Authority (although it did also have unpaid electricity bills…). It has since been able to secure more coal, which must be imported through tortuously narrow passes from India. As well as securing coal, the plant’s altitude, some 1800m above sea level, complicates electrical infrastructure supplies. Back in 2019, the pre-expansion Jaljale cement plant was reduced to periods of just 13% capacity utilisation, with power cuts occurring at a rate of more than 60 in a single year, with six once hitting in a single day.

Back to the current year, Nepali cement producers faced an additional challenge on 15 February 2025, when a court issued a ‘show cause’ notice over seasonal price rises that had taken effect in December 2024. Bizpati News reported producers’ explanations that they were not in a cartel, including the admission that they were already operating at a loss.⁴ The situation got worse on 4 June 2025, when the government raised sales taxes from US$0.08/bag to 5% of the sales’ value.⁵ In order to protect their margins, producers raised prices by US$0.15-0.18/bag. According to Ravi Singh, president of the Federation of Contractors’ Associations of Nepal, this has meant that contractors are now struggling to purchase cement. He accused manufacturers of cutting production by up to 40% to create an artificial shortage, calling it ‘a tactic to manufacture scarcity and exploit the situation.’ Producers defended the price rise, claiming it corrects previous underpricing caused by ‘unhealthy competition.’

Regardless of who can shout the loudest, it is clear that there is just too much cement capacity in Nepal. While exports to India, itself not completely lacking in cement, have helped, more plants are likely to close. Back in Jaljale, Udaypur Cement Industry’s workers, their families, other local stakeholders and political parties have united in signing a memorandum of understanding in opposition to the closure. They too are asking: Why call time on a plant that was recently upgraded… and how can we keep the gates open?

References

1. https://www.globalcement.com/news/item/18859-nepali-government-announces-shock-closure-of-udayapur-cement-industry
2. Global Cement Directory 2025, Pro Global Media Ltd., Epsom, UK, 2025.
3. https://www.globalcement.com/news/item/17800-nepal-exports-us-3-81m-worth-of-cement-to-india-via-kakarvitta-crossing-in-2024-financial-year
4. https://bizpati.com/industry/88192
5. New Business Age News, ‘Cement price rises to Rs. 22 per bag,’ 4 June 2025, https://abhiyandaily.com/article/simenttko-muuly-boraamai-22-rupaiyaansmm-bddhyo