Vietnam ’unlikely to reach export target’

Vietnam ’unlikely to reach export target’
09 July 2010


Vietnam’s cement supply and demand  situation has been balanced after many years of  shortages. At present, the country is facing a surplus of supplies which are now being aimed towards export markets.

Vietnam Cement Industry Corp (Vicem) targets to reach 1Mt of cement exports in 2010. But the target will be hard to come into reality.

Nguyen Ngoc Anh, general director of Vicem said that the corporation now has 97 cement production lines with total design capacity of 57.4Mt. By the end of 2010, 13 more new lines with a capacity of 11.7Mt will be into operation.

Over the past five years, some cement companies under the Vicem title, namely Cam Pha, Hoang Thach, Ha Tien 1, Hoang Mai exported to Africa, Middle East and Cambodia but their export volume remained low.

Therefore, Vicem recently cooperated with its member companies to organise a survey in many regional markets for the preparation of a cement export plan. After the surveys, a number of cement export deals was signed, particularly over 30,000t to Cambodia, 7,000t to Laos and 3,000t to China.

Many specialists said that Vietnam’s cement export will likely suffer the heavy competitive pressure from importers’ home market. Also, the big markets like Europe and US are dominated by Thai made cement. Vietnam will difficultly seek buyers in the markets where Thailand’s cement appeared already because Thailand’s clinker price is cheaper with better quality than Vietnam’s.


Source: Vietnam Business News
Published under Cement News