Filipino cement company, Eagle Cement Corp., posted a 4% increase in net profit in 2017 on the back of a 12% jump in sales. Excluding expenses related to the company s IPO, net profit rose by 5% in 2017 compared to the yea before. “We have continued to beat our operational targets in terms of volume growth and cost efficiencies,” said the company s President and CEO Paul Ang. “Our efforts in upgrading and debottlenecking of our existing production lines allowed us to keep healthy margins, despite the challenging market environment.” The company is currently in the midst of expanding its production capacity with a third production at its Bulacan plant expected to begin operations this year. Ground has also been broken on a fourth production in Malabuyoc with completion expected in 2020. Combined, these two projects are expected to raise Eagle Cement s production capacity to around 9.1 million tpy.