HK Stock Market Move | WESTCHINACEMENT (02233) continues to rise by more than 5%, with a large market potential in the African cement market. The expected landing of future production capacity is expected to contribute to a greater increase in performance.

WESTCHINACEMENT (02233) rose by more than 5%, reaching a 5.42% increase at the time of publication, closing at HK$2.92 with a trading volume of HK$71.0672 million. In terms of news, WESTCHINACEMENT previously released its interim results, reporting a first-half revenue of RMB 5.418 billion, a 46.4% year-on-year increase; the net profit attributable to owners of the company was RMB 748 million, a 93.4% increase year-on-year. During the reporting period, the sales volume of cement and clinker increased by 23.6% year-on-year to 10.82 million tons. Among them, the sales volume in the Chinese market decreased by 8.3% to 6.65 million tons, while the sales volume in overseas markets increased by 178% to 4.17 million tons. Changjiang pointed out that the company's capacity integration is continuing. During the period, it announced the acquisition of a cement capacity of 1.2 million tons in the Congo, and sold all its business in Xinjiang to Anhui Conch Cement, totaling a cement capacity of 3.5 million tons. The bank pointed out that it expects continued overseas expansion to bring greater medium-term flexibility. The African cement market has a large space, high prosperity, and profitability far higher than in the domestic market, making it a new blue ocean market for domestic companies to go international. The company currently has several projects under construction/planning in the African market, and is expecting these projects to contribute to greater performance growth after being put into operation one by one.