Taiwan Cement Corp (台灣水泥) expects its shipments to increase by between 10 percent and 15 percent annually this year on the back of strong infrastructure demand from China.
Beijing’s plans to retire old cement factories by the end of the year and raise environment protection standards for cement factories is likely to benefit large firms like Taiwan Cement, the company said yesterday.
Shipments to China are forecast to increase to between 45 million tonnes and 46 million tonnes this year from 39.7 million tonnes last year, while sales in Taiwan are expected to be slightly higher than last year’s 8.6 million tonnes, Taiwan Cement senior vice president Edward Huang (黃健強) said at an investors’ conference.
Taiwan Cement also predicts that its gross margin will rise from 22.6 percent last quarter, as it continues to reduce costs and raise product prices, Huang said.
The company increased the price of its cement in China’s Guangxi Province by 20 yuan (US$3.26) on Sunday and plans to hike prices in Guangdong Province later this month, he said.
During the first half of the year, Taiwan Cement shipped 21 million tonnes of cement to China and sold 4.3 million tonnes in Taiwan.
The company has a production capacity of 54.9 million tonnes a year in China and 10.6 million tonnes a year in Taiwan.
During the January-to-June period, the company reported a 1 percent profit increase to NT$4 billion from NT$3.96 billion in the same quarter last year, while cumulative sales were flat at NT$31.1 billion over the same period.
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