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perational efficiency measures taken by Indonesia'€™s second-largest cement producer PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa have helped the firm put the brakes on further net profit declines amid falling sales and prices.

The publicly listed company'€™s board of directors announced on Friday that Indocement booked Rp 4.36 trillion (US$33.13 billion) of net profits last year, 17.58 percent less than the Rp 5.29 reaped in 2014. Its revenues slid by 11 percent to Rp 17.80 trillion.

Indocement finance director Tju Lie Sukanto said the drop in revenues was caused by lower sales and cement prices. His firm saw a 7.73 percent decline in total sales volume to 17.3 million tons last year from 18.65 million tons in the previous year.

'€œOur cement price also fell by around 4 percent on average,'€ he told a press conference in Central Jakarta on Friday.

However, the company was able to cut its costs of goods sold by 9.18 percent to Rp 9.89 trillion last year.

Sukanto explained that his firm'€™s strategy to supply its products to regions close to its factories, such as Java, South Sumatra, Kalimantan and West Nusa Tenggara, was able to slash around 2 percent to 3 percent from its unit costs. It also operated only its efficient plants to produce cement.

Indocement, which is a part of Germany'€™s biggest cement maker HeidelbergCement Group, currently has three plant complexes, namely Tarjun Plant Complex in South Kalimantan, in which one plant with a capacity of 2.6 million tons of cement per year has been built, Palimanan Plant Complex in West Java, in which two plants with a total annual capacity of 4.1 million tons are located, and Citeureup Plant Complex in West Java, which has nine plants with a total capacity of 13.8 million tons annually.

It also has eight terminals to distribute its products, with terminals spread from Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta to Samarinda in East Kalimantan and Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara.

Indocement president director Christian Kartawijaya asserted that his firm would continue the strategy to survive the tighter competition faced by cement companies in Indonesia recently. In addition, his firm would also begin operations at its brownfield project in Citeureup in April this year, the operation of which would reduce production costs by around $5 to $7 per ton as the plant was more efficient.

It would also export clinker during low demand and reduce its capital expenditure to Rp 2.3 trillion this year from Rp 3 trillion as the brownfield plant construction would be complete.

'€œOur strong financials with no loans will provide more chances to grab a greater share of the domestic market,'€ he said.

He predicted that the national cement market would grow around 3 percent to 5 percent this year, based on the government'€™s infrastructure projects, and as the second-largest producer, Indocement'€™s business growth would also follow suit.

Data from the Indonesian Cement Association recorded last year'€™s total cement consumption went up by 2.1 percent to 61.45 million tons. The data also showed that national demand for bulk cement, often used for infrastructure projects, went up by 11.5 percent yoy to 14.5 million tons and contributed 24 percent to domestic sales of 60.44 million tons.