China’s Jan-Aug cement output rises 9.7%

China produced 640.03Mt of cement in January-August 2005 and 91.53Mt in August alone, a 9.7 per cent and a 14 per cent YoY increase, respectively.  

Large cement producers, which have an annual production capacity of at least 600,000t, produced 233.87Mt of cement in the first eight months, growing by 17.06 per cent over the same period of last year.  

The cement sales of the country came to 627.55Mt in the first eight months, creating a sales rate of 98.05 per cent, down by 0.03 percentage points from 2004. The cement stock by the end of August reached 49.01Mt  

Small cement works reported a sales rate of 98.41 per cent in January-August, up 0.57 percentage points YoY, higher than 97.86 per cent for large cement works, which was 0.34 percentage points lower than in the previous year.  

Henan, Hubei and Yunnan recorded robust output growth of cement with an increasing sales rate; Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Guangxi and Chongqing also reported growing output, but lower sales rate than in 2004.