Taiwan Cement has announced that it will be increasing its prices of cement products in China by as much as 7 per cent by the end of the year as a response to recovering demand in the country.
Edward Huang, Taiwan Cement’s senior vice president, said, "We are planning to increase cement prices in southern China by $2.97 per tonne."
Huang went on to say that infrastructure spending in China is expected to experience a double-digit percentage growth on the previous year, with demand for residential construction also improving. This year China is expected to product more than 2,400 MT of cement, a 4 per cent increase on last years’ 2,300 MT, according to the cement manufacturer.
"With the optimistic outlook for the industry, we predict Taiwan Cement’s whole-year shipments to China will increase 10 per cent annually to 54 MT this year, compared with last year’s 49 MT," Huang commented. In the first nine months of the current calendar year, Taiwan Cement shipped 39 MT of cement to China, a 10 per cent increase compared with the same period last year. For the present quarter, shipments to China are forecast to rise 7 per cent y-o-y to 15 MT. Taiwan Cement operates 22 plants in southern China with a total capacity of 65.3 MT/yr.