New cement plant starts operating

TIRANA, September 13 – A new cement plant, worth 200 million euros, an investment of the ANTEA Cement, part of the Greece-based TITAN Cement, was inaugurated on Monday in the Boke e Kuqe village of the district of Kruja, central Albania.
The plant, with an annual capacity of 1.5 million tons of cement, will cover domestic market needs and export part of its production.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Prime Minister Sali Berisha thanked the company’s officials for their investment contributing to the development of the Albanian economy and meeting environmental standards. He assured government would make every effort to guarantee all foreign direct investment.
Other stakeholders in the 200-million investments are the IFC and the EBRD.
TITAN Group’s long-term strategy of geographic diversification played a vital role in the improvement of the results in the first half of this year. The recent start-up of the new production line in Egypt and the new plant in Albania contributed to increasing sales and operating profitability in the Eastern Mediterranean and South Eastern Europe, offsetting the negative impact from the decline of cement consumption for the fifth consecutive year in the USA and the fourth consecutive year in Greece.
In Southeastern Europe, the economic crisis continues to depress demand for building materials, although at a lower pace than in 2009. Nevertheless, EBITDA increased by 31.7% to euro 43 m, as a result of the new 1.5 m MT capacity plant in Albania, operating since the beginning of Q2 2010, and the expansion of operations in Kosovo.