South Africa: cement sales increase

Total sales of cement in South Africa increased by 7.7% year-on-year (y-o-y) to 13 million tonnes in 2015 due to strong demand from the construction industry, according to PPC, a South African cement producer.

The total usage of cement including imports went up by 3.1% y-o-y to 13.8 million tonnes in 2015 and cement sales grew the fastest in the first quarter of 2015 at 15.6% y-o-y.

Cement sales rose by over 7% y-o-y in the third and fourth quarter of 2015 while sales growth in the second quarter was

In South Africa, domestic cement sales were down 0.8% from 12.17 million tonnes in 2013 to 12.07 million tonnes in 2014.

According to data from PPC, sales rose 1.7% to 3.16 million tonnes in the last quarter of 2014 on a year-on-year basis.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, domestic cement sales, however, fell 3.7% from 3.39 million tonnes.

South African cement producers have welcomed the imposition of provisional anti-dumping duties on Pakistani cement imports. Following an investigation by the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) into claims by a host of local cement producers, led by AfriSam, Lafarge, NPC Cimpor and Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC), that bagged cement from Pakistan is being dumped at about 48% lower than the normal prices in the home country, South Africa has imposed provisional anti-dumping duties ranging fro