South African cement sales rose for the first time in four years in 2011.

Sales climbed 3.2 per cent to 11.2 million metric tonnes last year compared with 2010, when they fell 7.8 per cent, the Johannesburg-based Cement & Concrete Institute said in an e-mailed statement today. Sales retreated 1.8 per cent to 732,961 tonnes in December from a year earlier, it said.

The Reserve Bank has kept its benchmark rate at a 30-year low since January 2011 as it seeks to stave off the impact of a possible recession in Europe because of a deepening debt crisis.

“A long-term recovery in South African cement demand is long overdue and latest industry trends indicate that further decline is unlikely,” Pretoria Portland Cement Co., South Africa’s biggest maker of the building material, said in a statement on November. 8.

Pretoria Portland Cement’s shares declined 22 per cent last year. The stock fell 0.4 per cent to 26.95 rand by 4:06 p.m. in Johannesburg.