By Abdul Ghani

Pakistan’s domestic cement dispatches increased 17.3% year-on-year in July 2026, signalling stronger local demand, while exports fell nearly 30%, highlighting sharply divergent trends in the industry’s domestic and overseas markets.

According to the Finance Division’s Monthly Economic Update & Outlook – August 2026, available with Wealth Pakistan, domestic cement dispatches rose to 3.8 million tonnes in July, compared with 3.2 million tonnes in the corresponding month of the previous year.

The increase in domestic cement dispatches helped lift the industry’s overall cement dispatches despite the substantial decline in exports.

Total cement dispatches increased 6.02% to around 4.5 million tonnes during the month, compared with 4.2 million tonnes in July 2025.

Export performance moved in the opposite direction. Cement exports declined 29.9% year-on-year to 705,341 tonnes, compared with 1.007 million tonnes in the same month last year.

The figures show that the industry's overall growth in July was driven by the domestic market, which more than compensated for the reduction in overseas dispatches.

Domestic cement sales accounted for the large majority of total dispatches during the month, underscoring the importance of local demand to the industry's performance at the beginning of FY2027.

The contrasting trends also show that cement producers entered the new fiscal year with stronger domestic offtake but weaker export volumes.

The cement figures came against the backdrop of an improvement in Pakistan’s broader industrial performance during FY2026. Large-scale manufacturing expanded 4.98% during the fiscal year, reversing a 0.7% contraction recorded in the previous year.

The recovery was broad-based, with 16 of the 22 sectors covered by the Large-Scale Manufacturing index recording growth during FY2026.

However, the industrial recovery remained uneven toward the end of the fiscal year. LSM output declined 3.5% year-on-year and 6.1% month-on-month in June 2026, with wearing apparel, textiles and pharmaceuticals accounting for most of the contraction.

The Finance Division expects economic recovery momentum to continue in the coming months, supported by stronger macroeconomic fundamentals, fiscal discipline and a stable financial environment.

Credit: INP-WealthPk