Hoping to re-energise falling sales, Caribbean Cement Company Limited has lowered the price of cement and is about to go on a nationwide promotional tour to rebuild interest in the commodity.

The company said Thursday that 40,000 tonnes of cement are now backed up in inventory, at a time when it is increasing production.

Cement is now being sold ex-factory at $475 per bag, down from the regular price of $510 - a 6.9 per cent cut.

Alice Hyde , marketing manager at the Rockfort based plant, said however that the price reduction was temporary and would be rolled back this month.

"Our inventory levels were close to about 40,000 tonnes of cement ," she told Financial Gleaner.

"All our warehouses and depots have been full over the last couple of weeks , as well as our silos."

Carib Cement is going on the sales blitz because it needs to create warehouse space for the additional volume that its new Kiln five and mill are churning out.

"We are in the process of commissioning our new cement mill, and we need silo space," said Hyde.

"So as a part of the whole commissioning activity we need to make space in the silo so that we can run products from our new cement mill five into these silos."

The expansion which the company has just wrapped up was a US$177 million investment that grew capacity to 1.8 million tonnes of cement.

For the first quarter of this year, the Trinidad-owned company sold 190,858 tonnes of the commodity; 7,736 tonnes less than the similar period in 2008.

mark.titus@gleanerjm.com