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The government of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, North Caucasus, Russia, has extended the income tax relief period for producers of cement.

In 2014, the tax will be 13.5%. The largest cement producer in the region is Kavkazcement (part of Eurocement group).

Bruno Lafont, CEO of Lafarge is reported as saying in an interview with Algerian publication Liberté that the group has already invested over €240 million in Algeria since 2008 and plans to continue investing to accompany the requirements of the Algerian construction market.

Lafarge, which has been present in Algeria for a decade and which employs some 2,600 staff in the country and as many permanent sub-contractors, is aiming to innovate in terms of products and solutions to contribute to building bette

A cement plant is planned to be built in the Republic of Mari El, Volga, Russia.

The raw material will be supplied to the plant from the Chukshinskoe deposit with Chinese investors expected to run the project.

In Sweden, building material producer Cemex has formed a contract with Swedish port company HallandsHamnar.

Cemex is to introduce two new cement products, especially adapted for the Swedish market, and each year about 30 ships will arrive at the port of Halmstad.

The port of Halmstad has had a trying time, following, among other things, the fire in Swedish salt distributor Hanson & Möhring's storerooms and glass manufacturer Pilkington, one of the port's main customers, closing down.

Hence, the n

In England, Rutland County Council has awarded Lafarge Tarmac Contracting a highways contract that could be worth up to £35 million (€40 million).

The deal is worth £3.5 million/year for the next five years, but can be extended by another five years.

The work includes resurfacing, winter maintenance, reactive maintenance and gulley cleaning.

Algerian cement and derivatives company Entreprise des ciments et dérivés d'Ech-Cheliff (ECDE) launched an international, restricted call to tender for the construction of a site in Rchaiga (Tiaret) to produce sand and aggregates for hydraulic concrete production.

The site will have capacity of 1 million tonnes/year, and candidates have to present their technical and financial bids before 3 March, 2014.

Each year, Algeria produces 18 million tonnes of cement. Over 11.5 million of this comes from publi

It is reported that Spanish precast concrete production plant, Prefabricados Hormitec, situated at the El Bayo Industrial Estate, León, northern Spain, has decided to close down.

This has been attributed to the lack of activity in the construction sector. The plant, which employs 14 people, has begun the liquidation process.

According to Unicem, the French national union for quarry industries and construction materials, production of aggregates declined by 2.7% in November 2013 compared to the previous month and fell 3.3% in contrast to November 2012.

For the first 11 months of the year, production rose 0.8% year-on-year. Production of ready-mixed concrete fell 1.5% in November 2013 compared to the previous month and declined 1.6% in comparison to November 2012. Over an 11-month period, production fell by 2.3%

Albert Manifold is the new group chief executive of CRH, following the retirement of Myles Lee after 32 years with the group including five years as finance director and five years as chief executive.

CRH chairman Nicky Hartery said: “We wish Myles well in his retirement and thank him sincerely for his outstanding contribution to CRH over 32 years of service, and for his excellent stewardship of CRH through the recent global financial crisis. As Albert takes up the role of chief executive, we look forwa

As part of its global expansion plan for its services centre network, Metso plans to build a state-of-the-art service and repair facility in Mesa, Arizona, United States. The new facility will be integrated with its existing Metso operations in the area and is expected to be operational during the fourth-quarter of 2014.

facility has been designed around the installed equipment base in the region and the customers' needs, which include service and repairs to large-scale grinding mills, crushers and scree

Through 2017, worldwide sales of construction aggregates are forecast to expand 5.8%/year to 53.2 billion tonnes.
Following recent declines from 2007-2012, aggregates demand is expected to rebound in North America and Western Europe. Eastern Europe is also expected to register faster growth.
The global market will continue to be driven by above average growth in the large Asia/Pacific and Africa/Mideast regions,” says Freedonia analyst Gleb Mytko.
The non-building market for construction aggregates is

Powerscreen has said that it will be present at Intermat Middle East, which runs from 14–16 January 2014 in Abu Dhabi.

Rajen Khoda, director of sales said: “Powerscreen sees the Middle East as an important market and feel attending Intermat Middle East is a good opportunity to get closer to the local distributors and customers.”

French construction materials group Saint-Gobain has signed a €2.5 billion undrawn credit line agreement with 26 banks with a reimbursement date in December 2018.

The line replaces another due for repayment in 2015. The group also negotiated an extension of a €1.50 billion credit line due in December 2017 to December 2018 with 27 banks. The €2.5 billion credit line has two options for extension.

Lafarge Cement (part of the French Lafarge group) is going to build another cement plant in Russia.

It will be located in south-western part of the Krasnodar region (South), in the Krymsk district.

RUB 18 billion (€397.1 million) will be invested in the project.

Stage 1 of the plant is expected yield 2 million tonnes of cement/year.

To reinforce underground structures during renovation works in the basement of Les Halles in Paris, France, the Paris public transport group RATP called on Holcim.

The French branch of the Swiss cement group injected its Spinor A20 product, CEM III/C cement and a plastifying agent into the structures.

Spinor A20 is milk-based, does not pollute and meets the special geological conditions of the project.

Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus will provide BYR 200bn (€15.35 million for development of Sitnitskoye granite deposit in the Brest region and construction of a road metal plant there.

Reserves of the deposit are estimated at about 9 million m³ a year. The project is due to be implemented by late 2015. Over 1,200 new jobs may be created.

Toj Road, Tajikistan, is to build a plant for production of asphalt and processing of broken stone in Sughd province.

The plant's design capacity is 7,000tonnes of asphalt and 7,000tonnes of broken stone/year. The plant's equipment and machinery will be purchased in South Korea and Germany.

According to a report from the Portuguese Construction Industry Federation (Fepicop), the local sector continues to underperform, with concrete consumption dropping 25.2% in 2013 up to October year-on-year.

Fepicop represents 9,000 companies operating in the construction sector, and it says that the concrete drop was impacted by a lack of construction projects in the country, both in the public and private sectors.

Usage rates point to the worst performance of the last 40 years, and in 2012, concrete

Holcim (New Zealand) is planning to construct two 30,000tonne import terminals at Auckland and Timaru under its NZD 100 million (€60.13 million) investment programme.

Construction of the terminals is likely to begin in 2014, and once fully operational, Holcim will close its Westport cement plant, which will affect some 120 jobs.

Cement usage in Spain during 2013 will have dropped 20% to below the 11 million tonnes mark, according to figures from sector association Oficemen, taking the accumulated drop in the last six years to 80%.

There is already a forecast that in 2014 there will be further drops of around 7% or 8% to around 10 million tonnes, making the consumption per head just 220kg, levels last seen in 1962.

At the end of November 2013, consumption was at just 10.2 million tonnes, which is 20% down on a year earlier and