Cement exports from Pakistan show a mixed trend

Pakistan's cement exports continued to report mixed trends in the export of cement and clinker cumulative basis for 11 months and in May alone of FY22, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. AKD Research has attributed this mixed trend to low export prices and increasing coal prices, which have made exports unattractive.

Pakistan's cement and clinker exports in the first 11 months of FY21-22 (July 2021 to May 2022) earned US$211.19m in revenue by dispatching 5.465Mt cement and clinker overseas compared to US$253.58m from 7.422Mt of exports in the year-ago period. This leads to the sector seeing a fall of 16.7 per cent in dollar terms and 26.6 per cent in volume during the export period. The negative trend also noted exports valued in Pakistani rupees, which eroded by 9.9 per cent to PKR36.68bn (US$175.1m) during this period.

But on a positive note, in May 2022 alone, export revenues increased 64.9 per cent, MoM, to US$7.36m on the shipment of 151,133t, compared to US$4.464m from 86,449t of exports in April 2022. The quantity increased by 74.8 per cent during this period. On the contrary, compared with May 2021 earnings of US$28.52m from 818,471t, this represents a drop of 74.2 per cent and 81.5 per cent YoY in value and quantity, respectively.

Export to the USA
Syedain Raza Zaidi, Chairman, Karachi Port Trust (KPT), has announced that bulk carrier Tomini Facility is still loading cement at KPT in 1.5t jumbo bags destined for Houston, Texas, USA. He was speaking at an event to mark the first-ever shipment to the USA, attended by officials of DG Khan Cement and other stakeholders in Karachi.

Chairman KPT added that it is a great achievement for Pakistani cement manufacturers to obtain huge orders in a very competitive environment and hopefully would benefit Pakistan when it needs foreign reserves. Earlier, the USA delegation recently visited Karachi Port to review the shipment facility.

A DG Khan announcement says that, “We are gathered in Karachi to celebrate and announce that we have secured an order from a group in the USA to supply 50,000t of cement every month for the next twelve months totalling 600,000t. This figure could double if all goes well.”

The USA presently import cement from Mexico, Canada, Vietnam, Turkey and Turkey. Pakistan has been exporting clinker and cement to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Madagascar, South Africa, Tanzania, India and now the USA.