Thanks to increasing demand for cement due to rapid growth of fixed assets investment and export increase, the amount of loss suffered by China’s cement industry has dropped by a large margin. According to a report of the State Information Center Economic Forecast Department, China’s cement industry generated 86.611 billion yuan in industrial output value in the first four months of this year, up 28.5 per cent year on year, and the growth is 25.4 percentage points higher than in the same period of 2005. Meanwhile, sales revenue of cement grew 29 per cent in the period, 23.9 percentage points higher year on year.

Profit of cement and products manufacturing grew rapidly in the first four months, and the amount of loss suffered dropped by a large margin. Profit of cement manufacturing totaled 1.456 billion yuan in the first four months, up 2157.73 per cent year on year; the amount of losses suffered, 2.457 billion yuan, down 3.4 per cent, and the growth is 138.1 percentage points lower than in the same period of 2005.

China’s cement output totaled 319.7Mt in the first four months, up 21.8 per cent year on year.

Cement export has maintained the high-speed growth in 2005. China’ s exported 10.8Mt of cement in the first four months, up 160.6 per cent year on year; and the export volume was worth US$348m, (approx US$32/tonne) up 164.2 per cent.