Cairo, 01 August, 2026 — The cement industry across the Arab region is entering a period in which competitiveness will increasingly depend on more than production capacity or market position. How producers use resources, deploy technology, manage carbon, modernise existing assets and prepare plants for a changing industrial landscape is becoming part of the same strategic equation.
This changing landscape will frame the 29th Arab International Cement & Building Materials Conference & Exhibition (AICCE29), taking place from 23–25 November 2026 at the Heliopolis Congress Complex, Waldorf Astoria & Hilton in Cairo, Egypt. Under the theme “Cement Transformation in the Arab Region — Competitiveness, Circularity, Digital Maturity and Future-Ready Plants,” the conference will bring together industry leaders, policymakers, technology providers and international experts to examine how the region's cement industry can navigate its next phase of transformation.
For the 2026 edition, AUCBM is collaborating with A³&Co. as Knowledge Partner, bringing industry and transformation expertise into the strategic development of the conference programme and its focus on the interconnected forces shaping the industry's transformation.
The programme approaches transformation as an integrated industrial agenda. Market competitiveness cannot be separated from operational performance. Circularity increasingly intersects with energy, materials and resource security. Digitalisation is moving from individual applications towards integrated plant intelligence. Decarbonisation is moving from roadmaps towards the more difficult questions of finance, technology deployment and execution. And investment in both existing and new plants must increasingly account for the capabilities that will define the industry's future.
The cement industry now has access to an expanding range of technologies and interventions. The challenge is increasingly one of prioritisation and execution.
Those priorities will not be identical across markets. The Arab region encompasses different market structures, energy systems, resource bases and industrial assets, while developments in carbon regulation, trade, materials and technology are increasingly influencing the competitive environment in which producers operate.
Transformation therefore cannot be reduced to a single technology, target or investment cycle. It requires choices that connect today's industrial and economic realities with the capabilities businesses will need for the future.
At the centre of the AICCE29 agenda is a question that extends beyond any individual technology: What will it take for the Arab cement industry to remain competitive while transforming how it produces, uses resources and invests for the future? The answer will not come from one pathway. But the decisions being made today — across plants, companies and markets — will determine much of what becomes possible next.
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About AUCBM
Founded in 1977, the Arab Union for Cement and Building Materials (AUCBM) is an inter-Arab international organisation affiliated with the Council of Arab Economic Unity. The Union supports the development of the cement and building materials industries across the Arab region by advancing technical, industrial and commercial cooperation, facilitating knowledge and expertise exchange, and connecting industry stakeholders across regional and international markets.
About A³&Co.®
A³&Co.® is an international strategy and industrial consulting firm specialising in the cement value chain and Green Built Environment, with an expanding focus on heavy-emitting industries. The firm supports industrial organisations in translating strategic ambitions across transformation, decarbonisation, operational excellence and digital maturity into practical and economically viable pathways.