KARACHI: DG Khan Cement Company shipped a second consignment of 37,500 tonnes of cement to the United States on vessel Abu Al-Abyad which left for Houston, Texas on Wednesday.

For the first time in its history, Pakistan exported the first shipment of 50,000 tonnes in June last year after DG Khan secured an export order of 600,000 tonnes of low alkali cement to the US per year.

Talking to media persons on Thursday, DGKCC Exec­utive Director Farid Fazal said Pakistan was one of 25 countries exporting cement to the US. He said the third consignment would leave next month. Pakistan may get 10-15pc share in the US market due to the good quality of cement.

The company is in talks with buyers from London, France, and Germany and soon the company would be entering the European market after getting CE certification.

“We have lots of surplus cement and as the supply is much greater than the dem­and, manufacturers are not utilizing their full capacity, hence we need to explore new markets,” he said.

He added that the country needs to expand its exports to big markets like the USA as the demand for construction materials in the USA has increased manifold with buyers looking for new sources of supply following President Biden’s $6 trillion infrastructure package in which all mega infrastructure projects including freeways, bridges and roads would be rebuilt or given facelifts as some of these were constructed almost a century ago.

“It took us 12 months to get the technical certifications for supply of cement to the markets in USA from TXDOT, NCDOT, SCDOT and LODOT,” said Farid.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2023