Philippine cement prices seen rising
The rising costs of raw materials and other manufacturing inputs are expected to jack up the price of cement to more than P200 a 40kg bag within the year, an industry source said.
Prices of construction materials in general are likely to rise in the remaining months of the year, as current prices do not reflect production costs, the source said.
Cement manufacturers are poised to raise prices by about P20 a bag, the source said.
The Department of Trade and Industry’s price monitoring as of the first week of September found cement prices at P190-P195 per 40-kilogram bag.
According to available data from the National Statistics Office, cement prices rose three to five percent in the first half of the year– compared with 25 percent in Indonesia and 58 percent in Vietnam.
Ernesto Ordoñz, president of the Cement Manufacturers’ Association of the Philippines, confirmed the slow increase in Philippine cement prices but also noted the relatively small size of the Philippine market.
He said that in eight years until 2007, cement demand had been steady at 12Mt, and rose in 2007 to 13Mt.
The industry’s production capacity is around 22Mta, he said.
He said this was partly the reason cement manufacturers had not raised prices to levels that would allow them to recover costs fully Published under Cement News
