Local plant demands higher cement reference prices

TIRANA, July 3 – Antea Cement, one of the two leading cement plants in Albania part of Greece’s Titan, has called on the Albanian government to impose high reference prices on cement imports from Italy and Greece because of unfair competition risking the collapse of the domestic industry. Speaking in a press conference on Monday, Angelos Kalogerakos, the general manager of Greek-owned company blamed crisis-hit Italian producers who were offering unfair prices just to keep their capacity utilization rate at 50 percent in order not to lose carbon emission funds from the EU.
“Italian producers are exporting to Albania from Greece and Italy so that their capacity utilization rate does not fall to below 50 percent because of the crisis and are selling at variable costs. If their production capacity drops, they would lose from the European Union carbon emission rights and as a result suffer dozens of millions of euro in damage. But because their market has shrunk, they are putting pressure on Albania with unfair prices,” said Kalogerakos.
Announcing that he had appealed to the Economy Ministry to intervene by imposing higher reference prices, the Antea manager said losses because of prices below costs offered by Italian and Greek companies have reached 20 million a year and the domestic capacity utilization rate has fallen to 33 percent.
“Article 10 of law 9790 on protection from imports, which also respects free trade agreements, allows us to do this. Import customs tariffs must be very high both for clinker and cement products. This means imports will not take the share of domestic production.”
The Economy Ministry has not yet reacted to the company’s appeal for higher reference prices.
Operational since Sept. 2010, the Antea cement Factory is part of the TITAN Cement Group a multi-regional cement producer. European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Financial Corporation (IFC) are also shareholders of Antea Cement.
The move in Albania is similar to that of another Titan subsidiary in Kosovo which forced the Kosovo government to impose 35 percent reference prices on Albanian cement, severely damaging Lebanon-owned Seament factory in Fushe-Kruja.
Albania’s and Kosovo’s business communities represented by the Tirana and Kosovo Chambers of Commerce have strongly opposed the decision as unacceptable, appealing for its immediate cancellation.