Phillipe Questiaux, chairman of Lafarge Ciment, the biggestproducer of cement on the infrastructure market, says the mainmeasure that builders expected from the government - the start ofinfrastructure works in full gear was not felt this year, either,considering most sales of cement have been made by the sack.
In the first half, when the cement market fell by 30%, thebiggest sales were made to small housing projects, especially invillages, where people usually buy cement by the sack.
"Although we did see a slight rebound in the volume of sales bythe sack in June, July and August, this only served to confirm thatmostly small, domestic projects are being carried out in theconstructions sector rather than extensive works such asinfrastructure or major residential or retail projects," explainsQuestiaux, who runs a business that was among the most profitablein Romania last year, posting 164 million-euro net income, whichmeans a 44% margin.
Sales of cement by the sack account for 60% of a market thatreached about 900 million euros, according to the latest availabledata, which is the opposite of what happened in the European Union.The Boc Cabinet announced at the beginning of the year that itwould allocate 10 billion euros for infrastructure, but only 4billion had actually been invested until August, which all cementproducers felt, as their business went down by 30-35% compared withthe previous year on the average.
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