Following long and complex certification processes, D.G. Khan Cement Company Limited (DGKCL), one of Pakistan’s largest cement producers, is set to export 50,000 tonnes of the building material to the sophisticated US market.
This is a positive development for Pakistan, which is struggling to boost exports in the face of a burgeoning trade deficit that has steered the rupee to historic depths. The process took almost ten months for the renowned industrial group to complete the necessary certifications for delivering cement to US markets after winning the contract. TXDOT, LDOT, NCDOT, and SCDOT are among the certifications available.
According to Brecorder, the company’s CFO, Inayat Ullah Niazi, stated that a ship was currently loading cement at a port in Karachi for delivery to Houston.
It was not easy for the company to meet the contract for a monthly supply of 100,000 tonnes of cement to Texas. In August of last year, DG Khan Cement signed a contract with a US company for the year 2021.
Since the United States lacks cement production, it imports it from Mexico, Canada, and Turkey.
Finally. a Pakistani cement supplier has entered the US market for the first time, as demand for the construction material has risen dramatically, with buyers looking for other options in the wake of President Joe Biden’s $6 trillion infrastructure package.
All of the mega infrastructure in the United States, including roads, bridges, and other structures, would be rebuilt as they were nearly a century ago under the announced package.
Pakistan exported 4.971 million tonnes cement in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year (July-May), a negative growth of 43.32 per cent, according to export data. Cement exports to Afghanistan were only 813,493 tonnes during this time, a negative 65.04 per cent increase.
With only 1.478 million tonnes exported, exports to other countries experienced negative growth of 27.2 per cent.
As per industry insiders, after DG Khan Cement began discovering the US market for cement exports, other larger players began the certification process for their goods.
According to the latest figures released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the country’s exports declined by 10.22 per cent on a monthly basis in May 2022, falling to $2.6 billion from $2.897 billion in April 2022.
D.G. Khan Cement, one of Pakistan’s largest cement producers, earned Rs4.1 billion in the nine-month period ending March 31, 2022, a 26 per cent increase in profit. In the same period of 2020-21, the company made Rs3.25 billion in profits.
It is worth noting that the business also received orders for cement export to the Philippines back in 2020.
With a nearly 50 per cent (Rs300 per bag) increase in the last 12 months, more price increases would be required to offset the coal cost impact.
