The member companies of the German Cement Works Association (VDZ) in Berlin have elected a new board. After a regular, three-year term VDZ President Gerhard Hirth (Schwenk Zement KG) has been re-elected to the post. Christian Knell (HeidelbergCement AG), Dr Dirk Spenner (Spenner Cement GmbH & Co. KG) and Eric Wittmann (Cemex Germany AG) were selected as vice-presidents.

"I thank our member companies for their support over the past years and look forward to the challenges ahead ," VDZ President, Gerhard Hirth, said after his re-election in Berlin. He was upbeat after difficult years for the German cement industry and expects due to the favourable trend in building permits in the residential and non-residential construction cement demand to rise in 2014, a trend already borne out by positive domestic cement shipment data in the first months of the year.

Gerhard Hirth (64), an industrial engineer who began his career in the cement industry in 1976 at Dyckerhoff AG, continued at the Westphalian Anneliese Cement AG and was since 2000 head of the PAN group of companies in Ulm. He is a member of various supervisory boards and advisory boards of industrial enterprises at home and abroad. Since 2005, Gerhard Hirth is VDZ president.