China Cement Industry Report, 2007-2008

The cement industry has grown rapidly since the reform and opening-up. Now it has become one of the pillar industries for national economy development in China. The year of 2003 witnessed a dramatic growth in cement industry, such as good economic operation, rapid growth of output, steady increase of sales, rapid improvement of performance and acceleration of structure adjustment.

There were 4831 enterprises in the cement industry in 2003. Sales revenues of these companies were above RMB five million. The total assets was RMB 322.297 billion, up 13.74% year-on-year; the sales revenue amounted to RMB 179.551 billion, rising 24.28% year-on-year, and the total profit reached RMB 11.039 billon, nearly doubled than the same period of previous year. However, there are still a series of problems existing in the rapid development of cement industry, such as blind investment, low-level expansion, backward output capability etc; correspondently, China also has implemented some relevant policies. Therefore, the development of enterprises should be complied with the policy. Meanwhile, the cement industry in China has the problems in the structure as well, and the entry to WTO has brought the opportunity for the structure adjustment of cement industry in China; however, the infinite challenge is followed as well.

The national economy in China maintained the continuous and rapid development in 2006, the GDP amounted to RMB 20.9407 trillion, up 10.7% and 0.3 percentage points year-on-year; and the fixed assets investment all the society was RMB 10.987 trillion, rising 24%, but declining 2 percentage points year-on-year. The growth of fixed assets investment was still fast, so the cement demand was strong, and then the cement industry recovered in 2006. The total cement consumption in China was 1.19 billion tons in 2006, up 14.4% year-on-year; the cement output maintained the rapid growth to 1.24 billion tons, increasing 15.54% year-on-year, and ranking the first place in the world for 22 successive years. It was the strong demand in the cement market that cement industry recovered the prosperity in 2006.

The fixed assets investment scale of the fundamental construction, technology improvement, real estate etc will maintain the higher level in China during the 11th Five-year Period. The implementation of the construction of Binhai, Development of Western Regions, Revitalizing Old Northeast Industrial Bases, the promotion of West-to-East Gas and South-to-North Water, and the overall startup of fundamental facility construction of Olympics and Shanghai Expo, all of which provide the wider market room for the development of cement. In addition, the central government puts forward to build the new rural areas, which will increase the cement demand as well. All of the above will maintain the continuous prosperity of cement market in the following several years.