The total sales of cement during April 2022 dropped by 28.6 percent, registering total sales of 3.52 million tons compared to 4.94 million tons in the same period last year.
The local sales of cement by the industry last month were 3.37 million tons as compared to 4.06 million tons last April, showing a reduction of 17.06 percent. The export dispatches also suffered a massive decline of 82.15 percent as the volumes receded from 877,163 tons in April 2021 to 156,613 tons in April 2022.
In April 2022, the north-based cement mills dispatched 2.8 million tons of cement in domestic markets, which indicated a 16.93 percent decline against the 3.3 million tons dispatched in April 2021. The south-based mills dispatched 566,538 tons of cement in local markets last month, which was 17.68 percent lesser than the dispatches of 688,239 tons during April 2021.
The exports from the northern mills fell sharply by 75.22 percent as the quantities reduced from 250,072 tons in April 2021 to 61,971 tons in April 2022. Similarly, the exports from the southern cement mills also dwindled by 84.91 percent to 94,642 tons in April 2022 from 627,091 tons during the same month last year.
The sales of cement during the first 10 months of the financial year 2021-22 have remained at 44.3 million tons. This is 8.22 percent lower than the 48.27 million tons sold during the corresponding period in the last fiscal year.
The All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) released data on cement sales on Monday, according to which the domestic uptake has declined by 1.84 percent to 39.5 million tons from 40.24 million tons from July-April 2021-22, whereas the exports during the same period fell by a massive 40.19 percent to 4.8 million tons from 8.02 million tons in July-April 2021-2022.
The domestic dispatches by the southern mills during July-April 2022 were 6.77 million tons — an increase of 8.46 percent over 6.24 million tons of cement dispatched during the corresponding period in the last fiscal year.
However, there was a substantial decline of around 30.79 percent in the exports from the south zone as the volumes fell to 4.05 million tons in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year from 5.86 million tons during the same period in the last fiscal year.
The spokesperson for the APCMA expressed serious concerns about the continuous decline in sales due to the unstable business and economic situation in the country.
