Following an abrupt fall in 2009 and a continued decline in subsequent years, the central European cement market picked up in 2014 and has since shown a modest but stable expansion in recent years. However, while prospects are positive, it is expected that cement producers will continue to focus their investment on improving production efficiency and their environmental record rather than expanding capacity.
Central Europe covers a significant part of Europe, running from the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania via Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia east to Romania and Bulgaria before ending at the Balkan nations of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. In 2017 the area has a population of around 119.2m and is dwarfed by western Europe’s 421m.
