The most favourable year of cement enterprises was 2009, when the industry produced 6.85 million tonnes of cement. Kyzylkumcement produced 3.14 million tonnes of cement, Ahangarancement – 1.77 million tonnes, Quvasoycement – 1 million tonnes and Bekabadcement – 893,000 tonnes in 2009.

This was peak for the Uzbek cement industry, which it achieved in ten years. In 2000, the industry produced 3.28 million tonnes of cement.

According to official data, Uzbekistan produced almost 5.8 million tonnes of cement in 2010, 6.69 million in 2011 and 6.8 million tonnes in 2012.

The growth of cement production is connected with the programme on modernization of construction materials industry for 2007-2011. It is planned to invest over US$204 million into the industry and the production capacities should grow to 8.3 million tonnes a year by 2012.

According to opinion of experts, cement industry is one of the fuel and power-consuming sectors and it has low profitability level. Share of fuel and energy makes up about 50% of total expenses. Currently, three cement plants, except Kyzylkumcement, use wet production method. The wet production method consumes fuel twice more compared to dry method.

Transportation of cement to long-distances (over 1,000 km) and its export, usually, is economically unprofitable.

Some US$100 million to US$200 million should be invested into launch of one technological line with the capacity of 1 million tonnes.

Currently, the enterprises mainly focus on satisfying internal demand, which consumes annually up to 6 million tonnes of cement and other part is exported. The cement is also used in construction of individual houses in rural areas within the state progeamme.

Uzbekistan plans to modernize existing cement production capacities and launch new ones. It is planned to launch 1 million tonne cement plant in Jizzakh region by the end of 2014. The project cost is US$114.2 million.

Almalyk Mining and Metallurgy Combine and Uzstroymaterialli are implementing investment project on production of 350,000 tonnes of white and 760,000 tonnes of gray cement a year. The project with the cost of US$114.2 million due to loans of the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan (FRDU) for US$74.2 million and own resources of AGMK – US$40 million. This year, AGMK will allocate US$19.3 million and FRDU – US$25 million.

This year, Uzbekistan plans to complete construction of new cement plant in Jarkurgan district of Surkhandarya region. The capacity of the plant is 420,000 tonnes of cement a year.

Modernization and launch of new capacities will allow Uzbekistan to keep key positions in cement market of Central Asia.