Holcim increases price of cement by P10/bag

Manila — Cement manufacturer Holcim Philippines Inc. jacked up the price of a 40-kilogram bag of cement by P10 or about 6 percent from the previous price.
In a statement, the listed firm said it could no longer hold off on increasing its price, considering how its costs, particularly coal, had gone up over the past months.

“Even as businesses across industries normally adjust prices yearly to cope with inflationary pressures, we held off price increases since last year (2010) to help the public cope with rising prices caused by the volatility of oil and other commodities,” Holcim said.

“We recognize, however, that it is not economically feasible to keep prices at these levels, given significant cost pressures coming from steady price increases for various commodities, particularly coal,” it added.

The price hike took effect on June 23.

Holcim said the last time it hiked prices was in October 2010. Since then, production costs had significantly gone up, but no price increase was implemented.

For the remainder of the year, the cement firm declined to say whether or not it would still implement another price adjustment.

Any movement in prices would be “determined by market conditions,” the company said.

According to data from the Department of Trade and Industry, the price of Holcim’s Excel cement was P195 per bag as of the June 27-July 1 monitoring week. In the same period in 2010, the price of a bag of Holcim cement was P220./INQUIRER