According to figures released by the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA), cement dispatches for March 2017 reached 3.9Mt, up 23 per cent YoY with the industry running at full capacity during the month, reports the Daily Times.
The rise in dispatches has been entirely driven by higher domestic consumption. In the nine months of the current Pakistani fiscal year, domestic demand rose by 10.9 per cent, while exports fell by 14.8 per cent, with the result that overall dispatches grew by 6.9 per cent to 30.3Mt.
For the nine-month period from July 2016, capacity utilisation in Pakistan stood at an average of 87.1 per cent.
The APCMA has said that high demand is also creating difficulties for domestic producers in the form of imports. “[D]ue to cheap energy in neighbouring countries; low-grade quality cement is being dumped in the Pakistani market”, the association said in a statement. In previous years, Pakistan has imported modest amounts of cement from Iran and Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates.
Domestic producers have already embarked on projects to raise capacity. According to reports in the press in March 2017, Pakistani firms are adding an additional 62 per cent to existing capacity, which will raise the total to 72Mta.
