Cement firms continue to face challenges

Cement companies continue to face challenges owing  to weak demand, rise in production costs and excess capacity. While the demand was expected to pick up last month, the pricing power of cement firms is expected to decline marginally. This has been due to several fresh capacities flowing into the markets in the last few months. The industry plans to add new capacity of about  71 mn tonne in the next two financial years. At present, it has an installed capacity of over 315 mn tonne to cater to the demand of 230 mn tonne.