Cement sales in southern Africa rose 18.3 per cent year-on-year to 1.18Mt in March. Sales of cement in the Southern African Customs Union during the first three months of 2006 were 3.05Mt, up 12.4 per cent from the same period last year, the Cement & Concrete Institute said on their website. Export sales, however, fell to 14,494t in March from 19,093t  in the same month in 2005, it added. The region’s biggest cement producer is Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC), which is 71 per cent owned by industrial group Barloworld.