Vietnam to import 4.5Mt of clinker this year

Vietnam will this year have to import some 4.5Mt of clinker for cement production, the same amount as last year, the country’s biggest cement producer said on Wednesday.

The producer, the state-owned Vietnam National Cement Corporation, will import around 2mt of clinker, mainly from Thailand, in 2005, it said, noting that its import prices currently stand at 28 US dollars per ton, up 30 percent against the same period last year.

Vietnam imported nearly 2.6Mt of clinker worth US$77m in the first five months of this year, posting year-on-year respective surges of 66 per cent and 133 per cent. The corporation alone imported 888,000t of the product. Vietnam’s cement demand is estimated at 46.8Mt in 2010, some 62.5Mt in 2015 and around 69Mt in 2020. A small part of the demand will be met by imports, predicted the corporation.

Vietnam, which posted total cement sales of some 26Mt in 2004, is expected to consume 29Mt of the product this year. It now has 61 cement facilities with annual combined capacity of more than 20Mt.

To increase domestic cement production and reduce imports, Vietnam is focusing its investment on upgrading existing plants, and building new ones in southern, central and northern mountainous regions in the 2005-08 period, the corporation said.