India

Cement makers are back in the reckoning as investors lap up the stocks on back of robust despatches on back of rising demand in the construction and realty space and of course a lower base effect.

Sanjay Ladiwala, president of cement stockists and dealers at Association of Bombay, said, "This is largely due to the base effect. Last December was bad due to meltdown and infrastructure was coming down, this year demand has been good, keeping with the GDP figures."

Leading the pack for the month of December over the same period last year was Jaiprakash Associates, whose despatches grew by 60 per cent to 1.05 million tones followed by Shree Cements with a more than 22 per cent gain.

Aditya Birla Group and Ambuja Cement also registered a growth between 10 to 7 per cent. The only exception was ACC, which reported a drop in despatches.

Industry players expect growth in the sector to be driven by renewed demand for residential and infrastructure projects and a price hike in cement bags will also be of some help.

Ashish Guha, MD of Heidelberg Cement, said, "We expect the composition of growth to be led by residential and infra projects quite largely in the next few months. We also expect price increase in the next few months all over India."

With the sun shining on the cement sector once again, despatches are up. It seems that cement stocks have caught the fancy of investors and fund managers once again.

From China Cement (2010-1-6)