As per data provided by the Vietnam Cement Association (VCA), the country’s cement market is expected to witness a sluggish trend in 2012.The industry will have to grapple with high electricity and coal input costs in this year. The growth trajectory will be slow on account of curtailing of investment in public construction projects, tightening in credit policies and a frozen property market.Vietnamese deputy minister of construction Nguyen Tran Nam stated that the retail price of cement had increased due to high production costs while implementation of modern technology was necessary for bringing down costs of operations and logistics.It has been suggested that there should be a limit in issuing licenses to cement factories with small capacities.