KARACHI: Overall cement sales — domestic and exports — witnessed a drop of seven per cent to 18 million tonnes during the first four months of the current fiscal year compared to 19.331m tonnes in 4MFY21.

However, the cement dispatches recorded a more steeper fall of 9pc in October to 5.214 million tonnes versus 5.735m tonnes in the same month last year.

A spokesman of All Pakistan Cement Manufa­cturers Associ­ation (APMCA) on Thursday said the domestic cement uptake slightly increased by 1.1pc to 15.882m tonnes during 4MFY22 from 15.713mn tonnes in July-October 2020-21 while exports during the same period plunged by 40pc to 2.157m tonnes from 3.617m tonnes during the same period last fiscal year.

Analyst Mehroz Khan at Topline Securities said that on a year-on-year basis, local sales seem to have exhibited a drop given a pent-up demand after Covid-19 led lockdowns, whereas exports are down due to higher sea freight cost, making exports unfeasible.

Makers blame high input cost for falling volumes

The APMCA spokesman said that continuous increase in input costs coupled with the recent hike in rupee-dollar parity are major concerns for the industry. “These price escalations are seriously affecting the cost of doing business in local as well as in international markets,” he added.

The north-based mills sold 13.314m tonnes domestically during 4MFY22, down by 2.3pc than 13.627m tonnes during July-Oct FY21. Exports fell by 49pc to 461,275 tonnes compared with 905,575 tonnes.

Domestic dispatches by south-based mills during 4MFY22 were 2.56m tonnes, up by 23pc over 2.08m tonnes during the same period of last fiscal year. There was, however, massive decline of around 37.45pc in exports from south zone to 1.696m tonnes from 2.712m tonnes during the corresponding period of last fiscal year.

In October, local cement dispatches by the industry were 4.603m tonnes compared to 4.859m tonnes in October 2020, showing a reduction of 5.29pc. Exports dispatches suffered massive fall by 30.09pc as the volumes reduced from 875,266 tonnes in October 2020 to 611,884 tonnes in October.

In October 2021, North based cement mills dispatched 3.831m tonnes in domestic markets, down by 8pc against 4.164m tonnes sold in October 2020. Exports massively declined by 74pc to 73,608 tonnes in October from 283,389 tonnes in October 2020.

The south-based mills dispatched 771,755 tonnes in the local market in October that was 11pc higher compared to 695,221 tonnes during October 2020. Exports also plummeted by 9pc to 538,276 tonnes in October from 591,877 tonnes during the same month last year.

A cement maker/exporter said input cost of cement has been continuously rising while cement is also not fetching reasonable export price.

He said exporters are also facing port congestion issue at the local port, causing delay in cement shipments to foreign destinations as imported wheat and sugar imports are taking too much time for unloading from the port.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2021