Hosted by Nihat Özdemir, Chairman of Board of Directors of Turkish Cement Manufacturers Union (TÇMB), in the press meeting, evaluations for the Cement Sector regarding 2018 and expectations from 2019 and also priorities of the sector were shared. In the meeting, outputs of “Building Costs Analysis Report” prepared by Özgür Yaman and Aslı Akçamete, academic staff of METU Civil Engineering Department were also explained.
According to the data announced for January-December 2018 period, nearly 10% of the cement manufactured by the members was exported. Our overall export in this period reached to 614 million dollars with an increase of 7% by tons, 16% by value compared to the previous year.
While the USA became the largest export market of the sector in the 12 month-period, it was followed by Gana and Israel.
Expressing that an increase has occurred in the domestic sales in Aegean Region in 2018 Nihat Özdemir, Chairman of Board of Directors of TÇMB said “We reached to a capacity of nearly 90 million tons with 54 integrated plants throughout the country by the end of 2018. We can observe that our sector, which is positioned as the leader of Europe and among the top four countries in the world, is getting stronger in terms of export. We started 2019 with a development which pleased us very much. This was the increase of our January export over 100% by quantity, and 85% by value according to the customs data.”. Nihat Özdemir added “Within Scope of the Total War Against Inflation Campaign commenced by our government, we assumed responsibility as the cement sector and we will go on providing support as much as we can”. Mr. Özdemir expressed that they are expecting a growth of 2%-3% in the cement sector in parallel with the growth of 2.7% declared in the New Economic Program.
An increase of 78% was realized in housing sales to the foreigners Construction expenses of the public and private sectors in the first 3 quarters of 2018 was realized as 481 billion TL with current prices. A growth of 23% was realized with current prices. Housing sales in 2018 was 1 million 370 thousand with a decrease of 2.4%. Also in the same period, increase of 78 percent was realized in housing sales to the foreigners. In connection with these developments, the construction sector is expected to recover particularly in the third and fourth quarters of 2019.
In terms of Rural Roads, concrete roads are by 40% more economic and 3-4 times more durable than asphalt roads Emphasizing that Concrete Road and Concrete Barrier projects are a domestic solution for Turkey, Nihat Özdemir stated that Concrete barriers lead to decrease of fatal accidents by preventing the vehicles to cross to the opposite lane by 90% in dual carriageways.
Mr. Özdemir, Chairman of Board of Directors of TÇMB said “As stated in 2018 Highway Safety Report of the World Health Organization, each year our country suffers a loss of 39 Billion TL due to trafic accidents according to the World Bank data. Concrete barriers will decrease the traffic accidents by 20% and also will offer a saving at the level of 8 Billion TL to our economy.
Turkish Cement Sector Supports Zero Waste Project Each year, 800 thousand tons of nonrecyclable industrial wastes were eliminated at our plants and a great contribution was made to the protection of our environment. For the sake of increasing our capacity further, Municipalities can be allowed to make long termed (40-50 years) contracts through changes in Public procurement legislation. Our current deficit can be decreased by 300 million dollars through use of fuels derived from waste in the cement sector and avoiding import of nearly 3 million tons of coal. Thus, it is possible to decrease the landfill waste quantities to nearly 60%.
Mr. Özdemir finally said “Our sector supports zero-waste philosophy, which is one of the most important projects of our country in 2018 as carried out under guardianship of Ms. Emine Erdoğan” regarding the subject.
