While economic growth in the CIS has slowed in recent years, partly due to a cooling Russian economy, many of its cement producers can look forward to an improving operating environment as the region’s resources are put to profitable use and governments invest in extensive housing and infrastructure programmes.
In 2014 the CIS is home to 285m people, with over half of its ethnically-varied population living in Russia, a further 15 per cent in Ukraine, 10.8 per cent in Uzbekistan, 6.1 per cent in Kazakhstan and the remainder in the other CIS states (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan, Moldova, Armenia) and Georgia (which left the CIS in 2009). While Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia can be considered to have an increasingly ageing population, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyz Republic and Turkmenistan have young populations (28-36 per cent of inhabitants are under 15 and their share of senior citizens is in the low digits), thus ensuring growing cement consumption in the years to come, at least in terms of demographically-related demand.
