Portugal, like its giant neighbor Spain, is also a member of the European Union and the euro zone. Portugal was ruled by dictator Ant António Salazar (de Oliveira Salazar) from the 1930s to the 1970s. Salazar's dictatorship finally ended with the "April 25 Revolution" in 1974, and Portugal ushered in political and economic liberation.
First, accept the bailout, and the economy slowly turns around .
For more than 40 years, Portugal has undergone an economic transformation similar to that of Spain, although it still sometimes needs to rely on the financial support of the International Monetary Fund. In 2011, Portugal received $116 billion in relief from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union as some of its major banks collapsed and a large number of public-private partnerships fled. Portugal's GDP fell 13.3% from $262 billion in 2008 to $227 billion in 2012. Portugal's economy has improved slightly, despite the current unemployment rate of 13%. (Translator's Note: Portugal has implemented a series of economic and fiscal reforms after receiving economic aid, and has successfully withdrawn from the EU economic rescue plan in 2014.)
Two, the two major enterprises divide up the domestic market .
Portugal currently has eight integrated cement plants with a total capacity of 12.4 million tons per year, six integrated cement plants plus a grinding station with a grinding capacity of 900,000 tons per year.
Figure 1: Distribution of cement companies in Portugal
Data source: World Cement Encyclopedia 2017, China Cement Research Institute
Among them, Cimpor Cement Industry (Cimpor-Ind Indústriade Cimentos) has the largest production capacity. The company was founded in Lisbon in 1976, but became part of Brazilian cement giant InterCement in 2012. Cimpor currently operates three integrated cement plants in Portugal with a total capacity of 8.2 million tons per year. Another subsidiary of InterCement, Cimentos de Sines, currently operates Portugal's only 900,000 ton/year grinding station in Setubal, near Lisbon. Cimpor also operates a cement transit depot in the Azores.
Another major player in the Portuguese cement market is SECIL, which currently operates three integrated cement plants in Portugal with a total capacity of 4.2 million tons per year, including 800,000 tons of white cement. SECIL was previously supported by SECIL- Companhia Geral de Cal e Cimento, FLSmidth and Hojgaard & & Schultz, which has been producing cement since 1930.
Three, the domestic demand for cement is low, and the export is the main force .
According to USGS data, Portuguese cement production rose sharply in 2007, but then fell sharply back to 7.2 million tons per year. In the following years, it remained basically stable and rose slightly.
Figure 2: Cement production in Portugal from 1997 to 2013 (10,000 tons)
Source: USGS, China Cement Research Institute
In recent years, the domestic demand for cement has been restrained due to the deterioration of Portugal's domestic economy. According to Cimpor's 2015 annual report, Cimpor produced 4.4 million tons of cement in 2015, of which 70% (3.1 million tons) were exported, while domestic sales were only 1.3 million tons. According to SECIL's 2015 annual report data, its domestic cement sales volume is 1.05 million tons, export 1.57 million tons, and the ratio of export and domestic sales is 4 to 6.
In view of the fact that these two companies represent almost all of Portugal's cement production capacity, and that Portugal's cement imports are very low in the current situation, or even basically zero, we can calculate that Portugal's cement consumption in 2015 is about 2.35 million tons.
SECIL points out that Spain's overcapacity in cement is a huge challenge for Portugal's cement exports. But in any case, Portugal is still a big exporter of cement. According to the data of the 2017 Global Cement Encyclopedia, Portugal ranks 42nd in the world in terms of cement production capacity and 13th in terms of cement exports. Portugal exported a total of US $222 million worth of cement products in 2015.
According to the MIT Economic Complexity Observatory, the main importers of Portuguese cement in 2014 were Algeria (US $140 million, 41% of total exports), Colombia (US $23.8 million, 6.9%) and Cape Verde (US $20.3 million, 5.9%).
Four, long-term optimistic, stable and slow growth
In the autumn of 2016, the European Commission predicted that Portugal's economic growth would reach 0.9% in 2016, 1.2% in 2017 and 1.4% in 2018. Portugal's economic growth in 2015 was 1.6%. Compir and SECIL's 2015 interim reports show that both companies are bullish on the Portuguese market for a long time, pointing out that the demand for private cement consumption market will increase steadily. However, in the foreseeable future, the domestic consumption of 7 million tons per year will no longer be possible, and slow but steady growth will be the long-term trend of the Portuguese domestic cement industry.
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