Baltic Export, Construction, Investments, Latvia, Markets and Companies

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Cemex representatives said that the loss was mostly due to interest expense and depreciation charges in relation to the past investment of more than EUR 300 million in construction of a cement plant in Broceni, central Latvia, which is the most advanced cement plant in Europe. The company's gross profit last year was EUR 12 million and EBITDA grew 154% year-on-year.

Despite lower activity in the construction industry in Latvia in 2016 and the fact that Cemex ceased exports to Russia, we closed the year with a very good customer satisfaction rate and improved EBITDA, said Graham Russell, CEO of Cemex in the Baltic states, Finland and Russia.

In order to mitigate the effects of the negative factors, we made investments in efficiency-boosting measures to improve the cost structure and laid groundwork for increasing cement exports to the existing markets in neighboring European countries in 2017, he said, commenting on Cemex results in 2016.

In 2015, Cemex in Latvia posted a loss of EUR 17.745 million on a turnover of EUR 71.16 million.

Latvia's Cemex is a member of the Cemex Group, one of the world's leading producers of construction materials. Cemex started operating in Latvia in 2005 upon acquisition of an international construction materials supplier, RMC Group o.l.c., which owned a cement plant in Broceni, western Latvia. Cemex invested EUR 300 in new modern cement plant in Broceni, more than doubling the output to 1.6 million tons a year. Cemex also exports its products to Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus and Russia.

Total Cemex investments in Latvia stood at EUR 348 million at the end of 2016.