Cement consumption in Catalonia in the first quarter of 2023 has grown by 4% and has reached almost 600 thousand tons. This slight improvement after the years of the pandemic maintains the pessimism of the industry, accentuated in recent months by the stoppage of real estate developments due to the uncertainty that inflation causes in costs and the increase in the price of money, which slows down the granting of mortgages
Although in March the increase was 8.3%, it is necessary to consider this improvement circumstantial since a good part of the growth originates from the fall in the market in March 2022 due to the carrier strike. The president of the Ciment Català employers’ association, Salvador Fernández Capo, considers that “the cement sector will only rebound when effective stimuli are generated in the construction of homes and the programmed infrastructure works are carried out.” From this point of view, regarding the construction of public housing -of which so much has been said this last week- “we must denounce the absolute failure of the measure implemented by the Barcelona city council, with the imposition of the reserve of 30 % of VPO, which has only generated 52 homes, according to the study just presented by Foment del Treball”.
On the slowness and blocking of the execution of infrastructure works “we have the unfortunate example of the lack of understanding between the Generalitat and the Ministry of Transport, where due to the ideological position of some members of the Government, the construction of such an infrastructure necessary for mobility in the Vallès has been slowed down when we already had the budget to execute it”.
Market revitalization is key to the recovery of the cement industry, which remains at production and sales levels of more than 50 years. Cement manufacturing companies are also in the midst of the investment process for the decarbonisation of their activity, which involves numerous actions in the implementation of new technologies and improvement of energy efficiency.