Cement sales decreased by 16.58 percent to 3.95 million tons in January 2022 as opposed to 4.73 million tons in the corresponding period last year.
According to the data published by the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA), the cement sector shipped 3.4 million tons of domestic cement in January 2022, depicting a 15.87 percent decrease from 4.04 million tons in January 2021. Export shipments fell by 20.71 percent to 551,006 tons in January 2022 from 694,934 tons last year.
Against the backdrop of last year’s historic highs, northern mills shipped 2.707 million tons of cement in domestic markets in January 2022, indicating an 18.29 percent drop from 3.313 million tons in January 2021. Similarly, southern mills shipped 693,453 tons of cement to local markets in January 2022 as opposed to 728,568 tons in January 2021, showing a 4.82 percent decrease.
Moreover, exports from northern mills plummeted by a whopping 94.12 percent in January 2022, falling from 233,404 tons in January 2021 to 13,727 tons in January 2022. On the other hand, Southern exports surged by 16.41 percent to 537,279 tons in January 2022, up from 461,530 tons the previous month.
A deeper breakdown of the data reveals that northern mills shipped 22.87 million tons of cement locally during the first seven months of the ongoing fiscal year, down 2.85 percent from the 23.54 million tons sent during the same period last year. In addition, exports fell by 61.39 percent to 557,615 tons during July-January 2022, compared to 1.444 million tons shipped in the corresponding period last year.
Domestic cement shipments by southern mills totaled 4.59 million tons during July-January 2022, indicating an increase of 11.67 percent over the 4.115 million tons sent during the seven-month period in FY21. Nevertheless, southern cement exports have so far slid by roughly 20.78 percent this year, falling to 3.384 million tons from 4.272 million tons during the same period last year.
In terms of an all-inclusive breakdown of the cement shipments’ data, total consignments (domestic + exports) stood at 31.4 million tons in the first seven months of the ongoing fiscal year, which is still 5.89 percent less than the 33.37 million tons shipped in the same period last year.
On top of that, domestic demand for the product fell by 0.69 percent to 27.465 million tons in July-January FY22 from 27.657 million tons during the corresponding range last year. At the same time, exports fell by a huge 31.04 percent to 3.94 million tons during the seven-month period from 5.71 million tons in the same period last year.
