Pakistan cement industry earns good export revenue during July

Pakistan's Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) has released cement export data for July 2020 (FY20-21). During this period, the industry earned good export revenue as the both value and quantity of cement exports increased on a MoM basis, but shows a mixed trend when compared with the YoY basis.

Pakistan's total exports (all commodities) increased by 25.1 per cent during July 2020 to US$2bn against US$1.59bn in June 2020, the PBS data revealed.

Pakistan's cement industry earned US$22.92m of export revenue by exporting 733,592t of cement and clinker in the first month of the FY20-21, compared to US$16.93m from 548,913t of exports in June 2020. Thus, shipping represents a 35.4 per cent jump in dollar terms and a growth of 33.6 per cent in quantity on a MoM basis.

However, when compared with July 2019 data (US$25.40m from 643,076t), the value of exports was down by 9.8 per cent YoY but a growth of 14.1 per cent was seen in terms of quantity. In local currency terms, the export value during July increased by 36.7 per cent YoY to PKR3.82bn (US$22.69m) from PKR2.796bn.

APCMA comments
According to the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers' Association (APCMA), the trend in exports from the north zone was highly disappointing as the total exports from northern mills amounted to only 0.123Mt, a decline of 46.9 per cent when compared with exports of 0.231Mt last year. The fall is due to the trade standoff with India and slow construction activities in Afghanistan.

The performance of the south-based mills that are situated near seaports is quite the opposite. Its exports of 0.762Mt were 1.5 times the domestic sales of cement in the southern part of the country. Last year, in July 2019, the cement exports from the south were only 0.301Mt. The official government data sometimes differs with the export data of APCMA, due to the late realisation of export revenue in official books.