The cement, manufactured by the Garadag Cement Open Joint Stock Company (OJSC) last year has been realized completely in the domestic market.
The main reason for that is the rapid tempo of the building sector development, the OJSC Board chairman, Uwe Koehler told the enterprise shareholders general meeting, Trend reports. The factory produced in 2004 1,3 million tons cement, which is 400,000 tons more as compared to the previous year.
The volume of cement, manufactured in 1999, was 200,000 tons. Rehabilitation works held in 1999-2004 at the factory, as well as purchasing of new filters costed 26,8 million USD.
Garadag Cement, which is currently the country’s only cement manufacturer, was announced the Joint Stock Company in 1999 and the Swiss “Holsim Group ” acquired the majority of shares.
The yearly demand in the cement in Azerbaijan is 2,5 million tons. However, the production does not cover the demands completely, therefore, the cement prices are rather high. Earlier the Minister of Economic Development, Farhad Aliyev in his interview to the media stated, a number of events had been envisaged to cover the needs on the account of the local production.
As the example, Aliyev noted, the Garadag Cement leadership applied to the Government for the factory expansion and the production capacities increase.
Moreover, according to him, some businessmen applied to them for the cement production and the government is currently scrutinizes all these appeals.