According to data released by All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers’ Association (APCMA), the cement industry ended the fiscal year 2018 with a yearly growth of 13.84% with domestic consumption mounting by 15.42% and exports rising by about 1.77%. It is the first time in 9 years that exports registered a growth within the sector.
The domestic consumption increased from 35.65 million tons in the previous year to, 41.15 million tons during the current FY-18, depicting an increase of 15.42%.
Moreover, the industry increased its production capacity by 6.57% during 2017-18 and capacity utilization was 92.82%, which was marked the highest since 1992-93 when total production capacity stood at 8.89 million tons compared with 49.44 million tons in 2017-18.
In June 2018, the total dispatches were 2.979 million tons out of which, local dispatches in North were 2.158 million tons, increasing by 13.7% from 1.897 million in June 2017. Total dispatches in South were reported at 0.423 million tons compared to the previous year when they were at 0.485 million tons, showing negative growth of 12.79%.
APCMA further reported that the total industry dispatches increased to 45.893 million tons in 2017-18 from 40.315 million tons dispatched in 2016-17, the highest ever as reported by the industry.
Additionally, North based mills exported about 0.183 million tons as compared to 0.223 million tons in June 2017, whereas exports from south were at about 0.215 million tons against 0.122 million tonnes in June 2017.
Annual dispatches by the cement industry in the last 5 years seem to have increased significantly by 12.49 million tons. In the year 2012-13, the annual dispatch was at 33.43 million tons, and it seem to have now increased to 45.89 million tons in 2017-18. Within the current fiscal year 2017-18 alone, the dispatches have increased by 5.5 million tons.
