Cement prices have already doubled since the beginning of the year in Russia, yet the price growth reached its peak in August and September 2007. As regards Sverdlovsk Region, the price race is actually comparable to that in Moscow.

‘It all depends on a particular supplier and their pricing policies. Nevyansk plant, for one, chose to freeze all the prices, whereas Gornozavodskcement raises prices by 7% to 10% on a monthly basis,’ SK Master Investment and Building Company’s Sales Manager Siamudin Agakhanov said to UrBC.

There is a little profiteering at play as well.

‘Prices have grown by nearly one-third in the last two weeks alone; this has to do with both the cement shortage and the producers and traders’ desire to make more money with the help of a popular product,’ TSK Group’s Supply Director Dmitriy Gorshenin says.

Mr. Agakhanov believes prices will keep going up for the next six months or so, with perhaps a little halt in December and January. Yet the growth is likely to resume as soon as February 2008.

Mr. Gorshenin appears to be of the same opinion: ‘given the outcome of European stock market trading procedures, prices will resume rising in October; a little downfall can be expected at the end of the year, though,’ he says.