The Turkish cement sector, which ranks first in Europe and fourth in the world, aims to double its exports this year.
The cement sector, which exports to approximately 100 countries, including the USA, Ghana and Israel, generated 9.1 million tons of exports and generated revenues of $ 417 million in the January-August period of 2018.
Exports increased by 70 percent in the same period this year to 15.5 million tons of cement sector, 597 million dollars of income provided. Cement Manufacturers Association of Turkey (CBT) manager İsmail Bulut said that Turkey is located as a grand manufacturer in cement sector.
Pointing to the technological development of the sector, Bulut said, “Our waste heat generation potential is 270 megawatts. We have activated 100-130 megawatts of this. We meet the electricity needs of 520 thousand households from waste heat without any state support and so on. Many companies have innovative initiatives on ‘sorting and recycling municipal waste and producing fuel from waste’. 33 million tons of garbage is collected annually. There is a potential of 7 million tons of fuel produced from these waste. From here, we can prevent imports of close to 3 million tons of high-calorie petrocoke. ”
Bulut mentioning that the municipalities paid too much for collecting, bringing to regular collecting fields and stocking the waste and said “We offer suggestions to public authorities. May the municipality collect the trash again, let an investor come and dump all the garbage collected before going to the storage area. Here, materials such as glass, metal, plastic that will go to recycling should be separated and evaluated. The remaining materials should be dried in tunnel drying systems to be burned in cement factories and other industries and sold there. If 100 units of garbage is entered per day, 20 units of it will be stored. For the remaining 80 units, it should be given to the landfill, and the municipality should give it to the investor as much as it costs per ton. In this way, we strive to create sustainable operations. When we realize this, we will save 3 million tons of waste by preventing the import of 3 million tons per year. Therefore, we will create a sustainable operation chain in the new concept.”
Bulut pointed out that there are good developments in the cement sector, and said ” We aim to double our exports this year compared to last year and generate revenue of over $ 1 billion. In 2018, our total exports were 13 million 200 thousand tons. We reached 614 million dollars in export revenue. This year, we will reach the target of earning more than $ 1 billion with an increase of 70-80 percent, exceeding 20 million tons.”
Feyyaz Ünal, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cement, Glass, Ceramics and Soil Products Exporters’ Association, said “Until this day, we have continued to be one of the most important aspects of domestic infrastructure investments such as renewing the housing stock, making roads safer and improving transportation. On the other hand, global liquidity contraction, exchange rate fluctuations and slowdown in investments have an impact in our country as well as in the world. We are not in a position to deny a decline in domestic demand. Despite all these developments, our Turkish cement sector focuses on foreign markets with our belief in the future and our determination to produce value for our country, and we strive to improve both our export volume and export markets. It is our greatest pride to see that this effort has succeeded.” Mentioning that with 55 integrated factories throughout the country and 19 thousand sector employees, the sector will continue to add economic value to Turkey, Unal also added that “Today we are Europe’s biggest producer, world’s fourth biggest producer and third biggest exporter.” And he continued, “As the Turkish cement sector, we still have the capacity to increase our production. Therefore, we are the country with the highest competitive power in the world cement industry. On the other hand, in addition to its production power, product quality, excellent service, environmentally sensitive approach, exemplary performance in occupational health and safety are other factors that strengthen the international reputation of the Turkish cement industry.”
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