China cement production growth slows in Jan-Sept
China’s cement output growth has decelerated in recent months due to weak demand and cement producers production cut to stabilise prices.
Statistics show that China produced 1.01bn tons of cement in January-September, up 6.9 per cent YoY in comparison with 7.35 per cent rise in the first eight months this year.
Cement production totaled 124.23Mt in September with month-on-month growth and YoY growth at 3.65 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively.
Luo Guo, analyst with Orient Securities, forecasted that the annual cement production would be about six per cent in 2008 as compared with 10 per cent in 2007, and maintained pessimistic outlook for cement production growth in 2009.
Luo attributed cement production drop to the decrease in fixed assets investment especially investment in real estate.
Notably, cement usually experiences price hikes from September to December in China as the golden season for this industry.
Pan Jianping, analyst with CITIC Securities, said that the demand growth on cement would restart with the implementation of proactive macro policies and rescue measures in the housing market in the middle and long run.
Pan said, cement industry will witness downward development in 2008 and pick up increase in 2009 according to our preliminary judgment. Published under Cement News
