Last month had been a rather lull one for the cement sector of the country. On a year-on-year, as well as on a month-on-month basis, cement dispatches largely depicted a falling trend.

FY11 had been a particularly hard-hitting year for the local cement industry, especially the former half of it, thanks to the great floods of 2010. The current fiscal year, however, saw some improvement in local cement dispatches, although the export side showed cement off-take tanking marginally.

The cement industry is off to a promising start in FY12. The ongoing fiscal year may turn out to be better than the last when local cement dispatches declined by 6.6 percent and exports slumped by 11.7 percent over FY10. The reason for this optimism lies in the latest figures released by the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA), for July and August, 2011.