São Paulo – Mauritania imported US$ 3.7 million in Brazilian cement in the first four months of the year. Cement is not a traditional product in the Brazilian export basket to the Arab countries, but early this year sales of the product were made to the countries of the League of the Arab States. Apart from Mauritania, Jordan also purchased cement from Brazil, but at a much lower volume: totalling US$ 3,300.
The kind of cement imported by Mauritania is non-pulverized, also known as clinker. It is used as raw material for production of cement. Cement is normally not exported to more distant regions due to the low price, which makes exports less viable. Mauritania purchased 68,000 tonnes for US$ 3.7 million, 68,000 tonnes of cement, according to figures disclosed by the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.
The purchases, in fact, answered to 10.7% of all Mauritania imported from Brazil, which totalled US$ 34.5 million. The Brazilian product most purchased from the Arab country in the first quarter this year was sugar, with US$ 18 million, followed by rebar, US$ 4.2 million. The third product was cement. Mauritania increased imports from Brazil to US$ 20.6 million in the first four months of this year, when compared to the same period in 2008. The growth was 147%.
Brazil has a very strong cement industry. Most of the production, however, is turned to the domestic market. The industry sold on the Brazilian market a total of 15.6 million tonnes of cement in the first four months of this year. The volume represents growth of 0.5% over the same period in 2008. In the accumulated result for the last twelve months up to April, sales totalled 51.2 million tonnes, rising 9.5%. The sector employs 23,000 people.
*Translated by Mark Ament
