Cement consumption won’t go away, asserted N. Srinivasan, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, The India Cements Ltd. Answering questions on the impact of withdrawal of higher denomination currency notes, Mr. Srinivasan said that cement demand would not be abandoned.
“If at all, it will get slightly postponed by a few months. Once the liquidity is restored in the system and more new currency notes come into circulation, it will ease the situation in the market and help the trade do business without any hardship,’’ he said.
‘Business as usual’ADVERTISEMENT
“So far, in the last 15 days, we have not seen fall in sales. It is business as usual for our company. Recently, I went to some markets in Chennai. I met dealers and stockists. As it is their bread and butter business, they are somehow managing the situation. They are also said to be using cheques apart from swipe machines for card payments,” he pointed out.
Quizzed on how the cement demand would pan out in the coming days, he said “ I have no answer. I don’t want to guess on the future demand. It all depends on the effect (of demonitisation) on other building materials.’’
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Mr. Srinivasan said the company had shown improved performance in the current year primarily due to increase in domestic sales and exports. Also, it had reduced variable and financial costs.
The company, he said, would continue to give a push to export of cement and clinker which are now mainly going to the Sri Lanka market. During 2015-16, it had exported 3.24 lakh tonnes of cement and clinker and earned Rs.100 crore. In the first seven months of this fiscal, exports had touched 2.82 lakh tonnes with foreign exchange earnings of Rs.70 crore. The company would look to double the export earnings to Rs.200 crore in the full year.
The company, he said, was planning to manufacture a range of specialised cements such as oil well cement (used for cementing works in the offshore drilling of oils by ONGC) and sleeper cement (used by the Indian Railways).