After 10 consecutive months of decline (from April 2023 to January 2024), the Catalan cement market has stopped its fall this past February. The 196 thousand tons consumed represent an increase of 5.9% over the same month in 2023, but they only minimally mitigate the contraction of the market in the last year, which has been reduced by 9.1%. For their part, sales in foreign markets have plummeted and with a monthly drop of 32.1% they place the decrease in the last 12 months at 14.9%.
The sluggishness in the activity of Catalan factories is a consequence of the lack of dynamism of the construction sector. The well-known decline in housing construction in recent months – slowed in part by the rise in mortgage prices – is now confirming the negative trend experienced by the construction and maintenance of infrastructure. The latest public works bidding figures warn of a negative trend of -3.8% in investment by all public administrations, after a flat end in 2023.
“But even more serious”, explains Salvador Fernández Capo, president of the Ciment Català employers’ association, “is the lack of execution of the awarded tenders. We recently learned that, in the first half of 2023, the execution of the investment budget of the state in Catalonia was 16% of what was planned and the degree of compliance at the end of the 2022 financial year was 42.9%”. For the president of the Catalan cement industry, this situation “constitutes a threat to the competitiveness of the infrastructure of the country”, which needs quality equipment with the appropriate size to face the challenges in areas such as the water cycle, energy, or mobility, among others.