China curbs rapid investment in cement sector

China curbs rapid investment in cement sector
25 October 2006


Fixed asset investment in China’s cement sector dropped by 2.63 per cent year on year to 23.2bn yuan (US$2.9bn) for the first eight months of this year, said a government official here on Tuesday.  
 
Zhang Li, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told an international cement conference, which kicked off here Tuesday, that China’s rapid investment in the cement industry has been curbed and the industry’s structure has been improved thanks to a series of government macro control policies. 
 
China produced a total of 762 million tons of cement from January to August, a rise of 21 per cent on the same period of last year, according to latest NDRC data.  
 
NDRC estimates that China’s demand for cement will hit 1.2bn in 2010 and 1.3bn in 2020.  
 
China’s cement output has been the highest in the world over the past two decades. In 2005, the country’s cement production stood at 1.06 billion tons, 48 per cent of the world’s total.  
 
Over the next five years, China aims to strengthen macro control over the sector, upgrade market access standards, phase out outdated capacity and support major cement producers so that they can compete with foreign counterparts on the international market, said Zhang. 
Published under Cement News