Türkçimento starts to see impact of Russian-Ukrainian war following a challenging year

Fatih Yücelik, chairman of the Board of Directors of Türkçimento, expressed that the Turkish cement sector has started to observe the impacts of the Russia-Ukraine crisis very heavily and fast.  

Mr Yücelik said, “The meeting we held with Mehmet Muş, Minister of Commerce, last week on the Russian-Ukrainian crisis took place in a very productive and constructive atmosphere. Even if this crisis keeps on in the forthcoming period, the solution-oriented approach of the Minister, the instructions he gave during the meeting, and his statements regarding the measures that will be taken and  yield hope for our sector. 

Turkish cement industry performance in 2021
The Turkish cement sector went through challenging times in 2021, particularly with the increases experienced in energy costs, in the process that started with the pandemic. In 2021 the production of the Türkçimento members increased by 9.2 per cent YoY to 78.9Mt, representing a total capacity utilisation of 71 per cent.

Domestic sales, which represent around 77.5 per cent of output by Türkçimento members, advanced by 8.2 per cent to 60.2Mt in 2021. An increase in domestic sales was observed in all regions except eastern Anatolia. With the estimated data of plants that are not members of Türkçimento, domestic market consumption which was approximately 59.2Mt in 2020, increased to 62.7Mt in 2021, a rise of by 5.9 per cent.

Total export volumes declined by 1.9 per cent to 30.8Mt, consisting of 18.3Mt of cement exports and 12.5Mt of clinker exports. However, total export values increased by 12.7 per cent YoY to US$1.256bn. The most important export markets for Turkish cement are the USA, Israel, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.

Summary and outlook
Mr Yücelik said, “As the cement sector, we continued our activities in 2021 under difficult conditions, following 2020 in which we achieved a growth of approximately 23 per cent. We predict four per cent growth in our sector in line with the economic growth target in 2022.”

“The assumption that 2023 is the beginning of a period in which the impacts of the pre-election uncertainties and the pandemic decline and that new investments will start from the 2H22 gives us hope for an increase in our domestic sales. We predict four per cent growth in our sector in line with the economic growth target in 2022. Despite this growth, we unfortunately do not expect that the sector will reach the level of 75Mt of domestic sales at the end of 2017, the year in which they started to contract.”