The company Les Ciments de Bizerte has just published its annual financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2020 at the end of which the cement maker has significantly reduced its losses to -421 thousand dinars, against -9.4 million dinars a year earlier, a drop of 95%.
On the revenue side, the cement maker achieved in 2020 revenues of 111 million dinars, against 103.5 million in 2019, a growth of 7%, including 5.7 million dinars from exports (-7%).
The year 2020 has seen an under activity compared to the normal capacity of the company. The cost of the sub-activity was estimated at 5 million dinars for production sold and 1.25 million for stocks.
In fact, the production recorded a slight increase to rise from 661,829 tons for the year 2019 to 663,491 tons in 2020, despite the cessation of production in March and April due to the general lockdown following the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The year 2020 was marked by the increase in the final stock of clinker as of December 31, 2020 compared to 31/12/2019 of 32,066 tons, an improvement of 2.9 million dinars, and a destocking in cement of 2,199 tons, or 226,827 dinars in 2020.
An increase in the rates applied for the sale of cement was observed in 2020 compared to 2019, with a comparable level of sales despite the total closure of the plant for general lockdown in March and April 2020.
As a result, operating income increased from -1.3 million dinars in 2019 to +13.6 million at the end of December 2020. In addition, the gross margin amounted to 25.7 million dinars, thus recording a rise of 11 million dinars, while the gross margin rate stood at 23.14%.
Net financial expenses grew 2.7 million dinars compared to December 31, 2019 to 14.6 million dinars due mainly to foreign exchange losses.
