Pakistan's cement production falls in 1QFY19-20

The Pakistan Federal Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has released the latest data for large-scale manufacturing industries (LSMI) for the period July-September 2019. It posts a negative trend in Pakistan's manufacturing sector during 1QFY19-20, including the mixed cement production statistics during this assessment period. The overall output of LSMI decreased by 5.9 per cent for July 2019-September 2020 compared to the year-ago period.
 
Pakistani cement production fell by 1.5 per cent to 9.2Mt between first three months of the current financial year (July-September 2019) from 9.3Mt in the previous year's equivalent period. The trend  has been attributed to the country's economic slowdown and various factors directly hurting sentiment in the cement industry. However, this negative trend has been reversed in the month of September 2019 when cement production recorded a growth of 5.3 per cent to 3.41Mt compared to 3.23Mt in September 2018.
 
The central bank of Pakistan – State Bank of Pakistan also pointed out that LSM shows gains in electronics, engineering goods and fertiliser sectors but decline in auto, food, and construction allied industries of steel and cement. Moving forward, the federal government releases for public sector development programmes (PSDP) more than doubled to PKR257bn (US$3.39bn) during July-October FY20 from PKR105.5 bn during the same period last year. The increased infrastructure spending is expected to stimulate business activity in construction-allied industries and it would be reflected LSMI date in coming months, it is assumed.