Cement Sales for Feb 2012

Dr Johan Snyman

STELLENBOSCH

16 April 2012

MEDIUM-TERM FORECASTING ASSOCIATES Building Economists Tel: (021) 881-3887 PO Box 7119 Fax: (021) 881-3887 STELLENBOSCH, 7599 E-mail: mfa@iafrica.com

The cement data in the following slides reflect sales up to February 2012.

These data were sent to you on 8 March 2012 as one of our regular newsletters.

Now, please scroll down to slide 8 to view the latest announcement by the Cement and Concrete Institute …

Cement sales data for February 2012

Cement sales in Feb 2012 were 7.4% higher than in Feb 2011 (given a leap year, there was one extra trading day) (First graph)

On a year-on-year basis, the (smoothed) Annual Percentage Change was +10%, up from 9% in Jan 2012 (Second graph)

The third graph shows the cyclical movement, still below the long-term trend. Sales grew by 3.3% overall during 2011.

In our fourth graph we compare the annual percentage change in cement sales with the annual percentage change in the average of the time series Total Building Plans Passed and Total Buildings Completed. The fit looks pretty good, keeping in mind that cement is also sold into the construction works market (not reflected in either BPP or BC)

We expect a modest percentage growth (single digits) in cement sales during 2012.

CEMENT SALES METRIC TONNES 1952 to 2012

0

400000

800000

1200000

1600000

| 53 | 56 | 59 | 62 | 65 | 68 | 71 | 74 | 77 | 80 | 83 | 86 | 89 | 92 | 95 | 98 | 01 | 04 | 07 | 10 |Source: SARB; SACPA; C & CI; MFA DATABASE

MET

RIC

TO

NN

ES

CEMENT SALES ANNUAL PERCENTAGE CHANGE 1952 - 2012 OF SIX MONTH MOVING AVERAGE

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

| 53 | 56 | 59 | 62 | 65 | 68 | 71 | 74 | 77 | 80 | 83 | 86 | 89 | 92 | 95 | 98 | 01 | 04 | 07 | 10 |Source: SARB; SACPA; C & CI; MFA DATABASE

AN

NU

Al P

ERC

ENTA

GE

CH

AN

GE

LONG-TERM TREND IN CEMENT SALES - METRIC TONNES(13 Term Moving Average)

0

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000

1200000

1400000

| 53 | 56 | 59 | 62 | 65 | 68 | 71 | 74 | 77 | 80 | 83 | 86 | 89 | 92 | 95 | 98 | 01 | 04 | 07 | 10 |Source: C & CI; SACPA; MFA DATABASE

MET

RIC

TO

NES

PER

MO

NTH

LONG-TERM GROWTH RATE PER ANNUM1952 - 2012 2.8%

Comparison: CEMENT SALES and AVERAGE of TOTAL BPP & BCAnnual Percentage Change

-30

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

|70 |71 |72|73 |74 |75|76 |77 |78 |79 |80 |81|82 |83 |84|85 |86 |87|88 |89 |90|91 |92 |93 |94 |95 |96|97 |98 |99 |00 |01 |02|03|04 |05|06 |07 |08|09|10 |11|12 |

AN

NU

AL

PER

CEN

TAG

E C

HA

NG

E

AVERAGE BPP & BC Cement Sales

Because of a directive from the Competition Commission, the Cement and Concrete Institute may no longer provide or publish cement sales data as they have been doing for many years.

This is a great loss to economic forecasters because cement sales data have special attributes, inter alia:

1 They provide a useful picture of demand levels in the building and construction industry

2 They are a monthly volume indicator (not distorted by values)

3 They are up-to-date data (becoming available within 10 days of the following month)

Hence, our slide is black …

Correspondence between the Competition Commission and the Cement and Concrete Institute mentions the fact the one of the cement manufacturers (Afrisam) has requested that cement sales data should be provided with a three-month lag in quarterly aggregated format.

Thus the data for Jan-Mar would only become available by end-June, or early March.

The Competition Commission accepted this recommendation.

It is not clear what Afrisam hopes to gain by this misguided step, and researchers are left in the dark.

Thanks for your attention … any questions? Please contact …

Johan Snyman

mfa@iafrica.com