With a spurt in development of infrastructure projects, a majority of Indian cement firms clocked over 200 per cent increase in net profit for the third quarter of 2005-06, industry chamber Assocham said today.  "Helped by much improved business volumes and realisations, most of the cement companies like ACC, Gujarat Ambuja, UltraTech Cement, India Cements, Madras Cements, Birla Corporation and Shree Cement have done exceedingly well in terms of their net profits in the last quarter," it said.  Assocham said that the trend would not only continue but improve significantly in the last quarter as also the next fiscal.
 
"The spur in economic activities in the form of higher investments in infrastructure, boom in housing and growth in the construction sector has been reflected in the performance of the cement firms," Assocham president Anil K Agarwal said.  After Swiss cement major Holcim acquired 14.8 per cent in Gujarat Ambuja Cements, foreign players will be controlling around 25 per cent of the domestic production, he said. 
 
ACC reported a whopping increase of 262.62 per cent in net profit to Rs 192.48 crore from Rs 53.08 crore, followed by Madras Cements whose net profit also zoomed by 243.73 per cent to Rs 9.59 crore from Rs 2.79 crore. However, OCL India posted a decrease in net profit by 54.3 per cent to Rs 4.04 crore from Rs 8.84 crore. Grasim Industries net profit dropped by 10.01 per cent to Rs 195.34 crore from Rs 217.08 crore.  Grasim Industries registered the highest growth of 60.49 per cent in net sales to Rs 2,503.16 crore from Rs 1,559.67 crore followed by Madras Cements and India Cements which reported growth rates of 50.94 per cent and 29.11 per cent respectively.