LAHORE: The country’s cement sector witnessed 19.13 per cent growth in March 2016 with 3.05 million tonnes of sales in domestic market as compared with 2.56 million tonnes sales during same month last year.
Total despatches during March 2016 were 3.583 million tons as compared to 3 million tons during same month last year, reflecting a growth of 19.34 per cent. The domestic sales in north during March 2016 were 2,460,109 tons compared to the domestic sales of 2,074,322 tons during same month last year showing growth of 18.6%.
The local sales in South during the corresponding month were 588,898 tons as compared to the local sales of 485,088 tons during same month last year, showing growth of 21.4%. This depicts that the economic activities have picked up in all regions of the country.
The statistics show that during July 2015 to March 2016, cement industry despatched 23.94 million tons in local markets posting a healthy growth of 17.69% as compared with local despatches during the same period of last fiscal year that were 20.34 million tons.
Exports from the country declined by 19.02% to 4.406 million tons as compared with 5.44 million tons exports of first nine months of last year. The overall situation during first 3 quarters of current fiscal year showed 9.95% growth as compared to the same period of last fiscal year as total despatches increased to 28.34 million tons against 25.78 million tons from July 14 to March 15.