Bahrain’s ministry of industry and commerce has halted imports of Saudi Arabian cement into the country after it was asked to accept price increases of 11%.
With the price of cement in Saudi Arabia escalating to $69 per tonne, as the country experiences a construction boom, contractors in Bahrain have reported that the prices they have to pay for the building material had increased from $66 to $74 per tonne.
Some have even suggested that prices could escalate as high as $85 per tonne, putting the viability of projects in Bahrain in serious jeopardy.
Saudi Arabia provides 75% of Bahrain’s cement imports and the source said that the construction industry in the country is close to crisis as supplies start to dry up. There are already reports the ReadyMix suppliers are running at 25% capacity and one source told the newspaper that it has run out of the material as it can not supplement its project with local cement.
“We are soon going to have a major crisis since local manufacturers are not able to meet the demand,” said a source, described a representative of a contracting company “engaged in at least one massive infrastructure project”.