Cement market may improve Jan'16: N Srinivasan

Price stabilisation in the cement industry is taking place and market condition may improve by January 2016, India Cements Vice-Chairman and Managing Director N Srinivasan said today.
"Slowly price stabilisation is taking place. Demand (for cement) has been negative in South. All India wise it remained flat", he told reporters here.
Hoping that domestic cement industry may grow after cement consumption in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh improves, he said, ".. May be by January (2016), there may be improvement. We will see actual consumption (of cement)".
"Our cash have been controlled. Variable costs have been same as last year. We have paid cess for about Rs 17 crore and wage arrears of about Rs 10 crore. After providing that, I have Rs 40 crore (as net profits for quarter ending June 30, 2015)", he said.

India Cements today reported standalone net profit of Rs 40.10 crore for the first quarter ended June 30 of the current financial year. It had reported net loss of Rs 2.96 crore in the April-June period of last fiscal.
"In the next quarter, I do not know whether there will be Cess. But definitely wage arrears will not be there", he said.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, he said the capacity utilisation as of June 2015 was 58 per cent while it was 67 per cent as of June 2014. "Sequential wise, it is 57 per cent", he said.
"We are in black and that will continue. At the moment, demand for Cement in South is 50 lakh tonne. When the market is at peak it was 60 lakh tonne", he said.

Going forward he said the company would focus on stabilising the company "performance" and improving "bottomline".
"Our move is to stabilise performance, to improve bottomline through contribution of cost and volume".