Cement factories deny crisis claims

Cyprus’s two cement producers factories yesterday rubbished reports of a cement crisis, saying the island¹s annual production was more than enough to cover the needs of the market. Speaking to the Cyprus Mail yesterday, a Vassiliko Cement factory spokesman said the company had already cut down on its exports to deal with the construction boom on the island this year.

"We cut most of our exports, at a cost because we had to pay a penalty for not honouring our contracts," he said. "We are still having some difficulty getting out of our contractual obligations but hopefully we will be able to do that by the end of the month, so that we can focus on the Cypriot market, which seems to have reached really high levels."

The spokesman said that the development boom would require around 1.4Mt of cement this year; the production of the company is 1.7Mt, meaning that even after 200,000t are exported, a 100,000t surplus would remain for the Cyprus market.  "We will only export 200,000t because we are bound to by our contracts and so as we have planned it the whole market will be covered," he said.