CEMENT SALES OF PT INDOCEMENT DOWN 7 PERCENT

Kotabaru, S Kalimantan, July 5 (Antara) - The country's second largest cement producer PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa Tbk said sales of its Tiga Roda cement fell around 6.5 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year. Corporate Social Responsibility and Security Manager of the Indonesian units of the Heidelberg Cement Group Sahat Panggabean said here, Saturday there are a number of factors causing the decline. "Among the factors include shrinking domestic cement consumption, the government policy of cutting cement price and delay in the implementation of the government's massive infrastructure projects," Sahat said. Sahat, however, predicted cement consumption would rise again and the market would be normal after Idul Fitri later this month. He said improvement in the market condition in the remaining six months of the year could make up for the slump in the first half of the year. "Such condition happens every year. It is almost normal that the market was hit by slump in the first six months of year," he said. Therefore, he said he is optimistic the sales target set for the year could be reached. Profit, however, is not expected to reach the level recorded last year because of the price control by the government, he said. Achmadi, the general Operational executive of Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa of Tarjun, Kalimantan, said competition from new producers also contributed to the decline in sales by the company. "New comers put up lower price that Tiga Roda, forcing the management of Indocement to cut the price of Tiga Roda to Rp45,000 per bag," Achmadi said. He said the central government has large projects of ports, and other infrastructure , but until now implementation is delayed. Similarly, regional administration have big plan in infrastructure development but most of the plans remain in the pipeline, he added. He said Indocement unit of Tarjun suffered a decline in sales of 150,000 tons of cement in the last three months as a result of the market slump . Under normal condition there are 4-5 ships carrying cement from the Tarjun unit of Indocement every month , but in the past three months there was only one ship a month, he said. So far, the Tarjun factory has been one of the main supplier of cement for eastern regions of the country.