China: China Resources Cement (CRC) has said that it expects its profit attributable to the owners for the six months ending 30 June 2018 to significantly increase compared to the corresponding period of 2017. The expected growth was primarily attributable to the higher selling prices of cement products during the period, which rose by 33.4% year-on-year.

Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan intends to become self sufficient in all building materials, according to the country’s Deputy Minister of Economy Niyazi Safarov, who was speaking during the recent Azerbaijan-EU Business Forum in Baku.
"Today, Azerbaijan is fully self-sufficient in many types of building materials, for example cement and brick,” said Safarov. "The development of the construction sector allows the creation of new jobs, attracts investment and increases demand in other sectors of the economy.”

New Zealand: The Buller District Council has backed out of plans to buy Holcim Cement’s former Westport plant assets and land on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island, including a water supply and treatment plant, a quarry, land, silos and a packing plant.

Buller District Mayor Garry Howard said that the council has been negotiating for over a year on US$3.5m deal, but concerns over the Cape Foulwind site led to it abandoning its plans. He said that buying the former cement plant site could have made the council liable for remediation of the land. Howard says the council had been keen to get the quarry as a source of rock for river and coastal protection.
Westport lost over 100 jobs when Holcim closed the cement plant in 2016, after 58 years of operation.

Pakistan: Business activity slowed during the month of Ramadan in Pakistan, with cement demand also affected. In May 2018, domestic cement sales were the slowest seen in the current fiscal year, which runs until the end of June 2018, yet they still rose by 2.4%. When exports, which rose by 41.8%, are also included, the year-on-year change rises to 5.7%.

The All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers’ Association (APCMA) reported that 3.92Mt of cement was sold in May 2018 compared to 3.71Mt in May 2017. Sales in the country's northern region stood at 2.81Mt, compared to 2.8Mt in May 2017. In the south, sales came to 0.67Mt in May 2017, as opposed to 0.59Mt in May 2017. Exports from the northern region were 0.224Mt in May 2018 compared to 0.219Mt in May 2017. From the southern region, exports totalled 0.215Mt compared to just 0.09Mt in May 2017.

Total cement sales in the first 11 months of the 2018 Fiscal Year hit a record high, with 42.92Mt sold, a 14.2% rise year-on-year compared to 37.6Mt in the first 11 months of the 2017 Fiscal Year. The APCMA reported that the national capacity utilisation rate over the 11 months period was 94.7%, beating the previous 93.6% record from 1992-1993.

An APCMA spokesperson said the association anticipated that domestic cement consumption would once again rise after Ramadan, while a continued increase in exports was a welcome sign for the industry. However, he said the major factor behind the rise in exports had been the decline in the value of the Pakistani Rupee against the US Dollar, which greatly improved the competitiveness of cement manufacturers in global markets.