MUMBAI: Century Textiles and Industries is betting big on its cement vertical by going ahead with its capacity expansion of 4.3 million tonne at an investment of Rs 2,408 crore.

“The rise in input costs in the industries we are in and slowdown in demand in most of our business verticals affected our profit. However, with rapid infrastructure development and urbanisation, we expect our cement vertical to grow after the monsoon,” Managing Director of the company Kumar Mangalam Birla said at the 15th Annual General meeting here today.

The company is in line with its expansion plan in the cement vertical. Our capacity expansion is for 4.3 million tonne taking the total capacity to 12.8 million tonne at an investment of Rs 2,408 crore, he said.

The company expects the cement demand to grow by 8-9 per cent this fiscal from 6.5 per cent last year, he added.

Talking about its textiles segment, he said in spite of increase in costs, working of the textile unit is expected to be stable due to improved demand for rayon tyre yarn.

Century posted 89.92 per cent fall in net profit for quarter ended June 30, at Rs 2.41 crore compared to Rs 23.90 crore for the same quarter in the previous year.

The company’s total income increased by 18.25 per cent at Rs 1,394.75 crore in the reported quarter compared Rs 1,179.51 crore for the corresponding quarter previous year.

The company declared a 55 per cent pidend to its shareholders at Rs 5.5 per share of Rs 10 each.

The company, which exported around Rs 1 crore worth Viscose Filament Yarn (VFY) to Pakistan, is expecting the shipment to grow to Rs 10 crore this year, he said.

Century has a wide portfolio manufacturing yarn, denim, viscose filament rayon yarn, tyrecords, caustic soda, sulfuric acid, salt, cement and pulp and paper.