Brazilian market off to good start in January 2021

Brazilian cement demand increased by 10.1 per cent YoY and 7.3 per cent MoM to 5.03Mta in January 2021, according to the country’s cement association, SNIC. Sales per working day were 223,600t, up 7.3 per cent MoM and 17.5 per cent YoY. Deliveries were supported by favourable weather conditions in January as well as the maintenance of real estate works and the latest releases of emergency aid supporting self-construction, reports SNIC. The poor sales performance in January 2020 due to heavy rains also resulted in a weak comparison base.

“The expectation is that the low performance of the first quarter of last year will be a reference on which we will have more vigorous results until April this year. The great challenge for the cement sector in 2021 will be to overcome the performance we had as of May 2020, responsible for bringing us back to the level of commercialisation of 60Mt, equivalent to annualised sales in mid-2016,” said Paulo Camillo Penna, president of SNIC.

In terms of regional sales, the Southeast – the country’s largest market – saw sales jump by 13.3 per cent to 2.408Mt in January 2021 from 2.126Mt in January 2020 while the second-largest market, the Northeast reported 8.5 per cent rise in sales to 1.113Mt from 1.026Mt over the period. The Central East reported the largest market expansion of 16.6 per cent from 471,000t to 549,000t. In the South consumption increased by 2.7 per cent YoY to 764,000t in January 2021 from 744,000t in the year-ago period. Only the North saw its market contract, by two per cent YoY, to 196,000t in January 2021 from 200,000t in January 2020.

Exports from Brazil more than doubled from 14,000t in January 2020 to 30,000t in January 2021.