BERLIN, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Revenues of HeidelbergCement increased by 4.3 percent to 18.9 billion euros (20.41 billion U.S. dollars) in the fiscal year 2019, the multinational building materials company headquartered in Heidelberg announced Thursday.
At the same time, the operating profit of HeidelbergCement rose by 15.5 percent to 3.6 billion euros.
"Although the environment was again challenging, we were able to improve numerous important key figures in the 2019 financial year," said Dominik von Achten, chairperson of the managing board (CEO) of HeidelbergCement.
HeidelbergCement stressed that it had continued its efforts on climate protection. By 2030, the company was aiming to reduce specific net CO2 emissions per ton of cement by 30 percent compared with 1990. In 2019, a reduction of around 22 percent had already been achieved.
Although the global development of sales volumes was "positive" in the first two months of 2020, the German company stressed that conditions had changed "rapidly" due to the fast spread of the coronavirus.
"We have to assess the situation day by day," said von Achten. "At the moment, we are not able to predict how long the precautionary measures will last, and which impact is to be expected on the construction activities in each country." (1 euro = 1.08 U.S. dollars)
