Rock Hard Ce­ment Ltd is warn­ing its cus­tomers that mea­sures be­ing im­ple­ment­ed by the Min­istry of Trade to lim­it the im­por­ta­tion of Port­land ce­ment will force an 80 per cent in­crease in ce­ment prices in the new year.

In a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day and a full page ad which ap­pears in to­day’s news­pa­per, the com­pa­ny said the Gov­ern­ment has im­ple­ment­ed crip­pling re­stric­tions that have ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed their in­dus­try. The com­pa­ny said these mea­sures will de­lay the com­pa­ny’s planned re­sump­tion of busi­ness on Jan­u­ary 4.

“Con­se­quent­ly, the ship­ments have been de­layed and this has had neg­a­tive con­se­quences on our op­er­a­tions,” the re­lease stat­ed.

One of the mea­sures be­ing im­ple­ment­ed was the Trade Or­di­nance No 19 of 1958 which states that Port­land ce­ment, among var­i­ous oth­er sim­i­lar types of hy­draulic ce­ment are now on this coun­try’s neg­a­tive list. The oth­er two, the com­pa­ny said, were le­gal no­tices 415 and 416 of the Cus­toms Act which state all tar­iffs are sus­pend­ed and there was a 50 per cent in­crease in du­ties on Port­land ce­ment and oth­er types of hy­draulic ce­ment.

Rock Hard said these more strin­gent mea­sures fol­low a 35 per cent in­crease in du­ties im­posed in 2020.

“Du­ties on ce­ment have ef­fec­tive­ly moved from 0-5 per cent and 2021 will see a price in­crease of 80 per cent,” the com­pa­ny said.

A bag of ce­ment cur­rent­ly costs be­tween $45 and $50. If the low­er cost is used, the price of a bag of ce­ment cur­rent­ly cost­ing $45 will in­crease to $81.

But, the com­pa­ny said a re­stric­tion on the quan­ti­ty of im­port­ed ce­ment can push the price even high­er.

“In ad­di­tion to these new mea­sures, there is a pro­posed re­stric­tion on ce­ment com­ing in­to our coun­try. Just 75,000 tonnes of im­port­ed ce­ment will be al­lowed for the year. This rep­re­sents a very small por­tion of T&T’s an­nu­al sup­ply.”

Rock Hard is warn­ing T&T that if this re­stric­tion is im­posed, there will be a ma­jor ce­ment short­age, a dev­as­tat­ing im­pact on prices and “the added threat of a mo­nop­oly in the sup­ply of ce­ment.”

The com­pa­ny said they re­main com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing the coun­try with high-qual­i­ty ce­ment at an af­ford­able price.

Rock Hard is hop­ing to be able to re­open on Feb­ru­ary 1.