Carpatcement sales down 25-30% in Q1

Carpatcement Holding, the Romanian subsidiary of German group HeidelbergCement, recorded a sales volume decline by 25-30% in the first quarter of the year compared with the same time last year, amid weaker activity in the constructions sector owing to lacking financing for new projects.
The collapse of the real estate market and the lack of funding for infrastructure projects have hit hard the businesses of the main cement producers on the Romanian market, Lafarge (France), HeidelbergCement (Germany) and Holcim (Switzerland), which reported a decline of the cement market by 20 to 40%. “Amid an overall reduction in activity on the construction market, especially because of the lack of funding for new projects and amid a drawn-out, capricious winter, compared with the same time in 2008, there was a decline in the volume of sales by around 25-30% in the first quarter of 2009 against the similar period of last year,” said Mihai Rohan, president and general manager of Carpatcement Holding.