Votorantim Cement informs that – from this Monday, September 22nd, the Itaú de Minas factory, located in southern Minas Gerais, resumes its maximum capacity operation. The unit, which accounts for provisioning the northern region of the state of São Paulo, had been producing at partial pace in the past weeks due to a scheduled stoppage for mill maintenance. From today on, it resumes full production in three shifts, seven days a week, totalizing 7,500 tons of cement/day.

To meet the huge internal demand for the product in this region and throughout the country, Votorantim Cement has taken some steps:

1) export cement shipments have been called off, prioritizing national provisioning;

2) regulating stock have been considerably reduced, distributing all of the existing production at the cement factories to its customers (these regulating stocks aim to keep market provisioned in the case of factory maintenance);

3) operational logistics has been re-adequated aiming to improve product distribution efficiency and send cement from a factory to production-distant consuming regions.
 
It is worth pointing out that – in spite of the increase in demand - Votorantim Cement has kept prices unchanged at the plant gate, keeping the same values as in April, 2008. The price increases which occurred in some cases were seen at the distribution chain due to higher demand.
 
In addition to these immediate-effected actions, the company has announced the biggest investment plan in the Country’s cement industry history: R$ 3.2 billion are being applied in 12 new factories and mills, re-activations, and modernization of existing plants. Altogether, Votorantim Cement will have a 60% increase in its production capacity in Brazil by 2011, leaping from 25 to 39 million tons a year.
 
The expansion plan has so far comprised reactivations of the factories in Pinheiro Machado/RS, Cocalzinho/GO, and Poty Paulista/PE. The inaugurations of mills in Barcarena/PA and Pecém/CE, the factory modernizations in Santa Helena/SP, Itaú de Minas/MG, Sobradinho/DF, and Rio Branco do Sul/PR – in addition to the beginning of the construction works for the factories in Xambioá/TO, Vidal Ramos/SC, Sepetiba/RJ, Porto Velho/RO, and Baraúna-RN, and production line expansion at the Salto/SP and Nobres/MT units.