Cement makers reveal glut of 48%; become hub for Caribbean

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Republic cement-makers (Adocem) on Monday revealed a glut in the market with a 48% excess and low prices.

Adocem president Carlos Emilio González provided the figures at a luncheon to release the Annual Report 2014. He called the oversupply is high very low prices during the last three years.

He said with prices below the current ones (slightly more than RD$200 depending on location) the cement industry’s development would be unsustainable.

Gonzalez said since February the price of a bag of cement has fallen 25% in hardware stores from RD$ 310 to RD$235 with tax included, "this drop is the result of a natural market process with overcapacity and highly competitiveness.”

"As an industry we’ve been investing heavily in initiatives that support productivity and efficiency, to reduce this impact however, with prices below current levels, to continue operating as we’ve been doing would be unsustainable," he said.

The business leader noted however that the country has become a cement exporting hub in the Caribbean, "a country which processes cement for all these countries."

Gonzalez said the country’s annual cement production capacity is 6.9 million tons, adding that 5.4 million tons were produced in 2014, compared to 4.5 million in 2013.