Lucky Cement

Lucky Cement, Pakistan, is expected to announce its first-half FY04 results in next couple of weeks as the stock market has been reacting positively for the last few days in anticipation of good cement sector results. A research analyst, Abdul Rasheed, at Invest Capital and Securities said that the reasons for the expected increase in profits of the company were higher retention prices and lower manufacturing cost.

Lucky Cement sold 483,000t of cement during H1 FY04 compared to sales
of 516,000t during H1 FY03. There was a decline of six per cent in
dispatches compared to the similar period of last year.

"Cartel-dictated sales, winter season in the North and lesser working
days in Ramadan were the main reasons for the decline in dispatches," he said
and added: "However, better retail prices and lower central excise duty
(CED) are expected to push net sales up by 11 per cent.