Rising exports to Kaliningrad’s booming construction market have helped Lithuania’s only cement manufacturer, Akmenes Cementas (Akmene Cement), to achieve growth in revenue this year despite the stagnating domestic real estate market.

Akmenes Cementas CEO Arturas Zaremba said that the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad accounted for around six per cent of the company’s total sales for the first half of this year. The company posted a 42 per cent rise in first-half sales to LTL143.317m (EUR41.5m). Sales for June jumped by 20 per cent YoY to LTL32.748m.

“Cement consumption in Lithuania, which is still our key market, has stopped increasing and is keeping at around 2007 levels. No decline has been observed either, which is reflected by our results. But we have found new markets: we have increased our exports to Kaliningrad,” Zaremba said.