Lahore
The cement export that had been dropping by double digits in the first seven months of this fiscal, shown a marginal growth of 1.47pc during Feb 2016, registering an impressive growth of 20.58 percent during March 2016 as the quantity increased to 534,804 tons compared to 443,539 tons during March 2015.
Analyzing the overall situation of current fiscal, the statistics show that during July 2015 to March 2016, cement industry despatched 23.94m tons in local markets posting a healthy growth of 17.69pc compared with local despatches during the same period of last fiscal year. Exports from the country declined by 19.02pc to 4.406 Million Tons compared with exports during the first nine months of last year. 
With regards to the turnaround in exports, spokesman of All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers’ Association said the growth in cement exports in March is very encouraging for the industry. He said this enabled the industry to utilize almost 95pc of its installed capacity. He said the industry has full faith in the economy of the country and it has kept on increasing its capacity on regular basis, while further increase in capacity to the tune of around 26,000 tons per day is expected to be available after the commencement of DG Khan, Lucky, Cherat and Attock Cement expansions.
Other major players are also working on expansion plans – the spokesman added.