Strengthening Confidence, Seeking Breakthrough and Promoting Development, Cement Industry Opens a New Chapter in the Face of Difficulties

real estate sales, it is expected that this year's sales scale will stop falling optimistically, new construction will fall by 20-25%, and the real estate industry will still recover weakly. Yang Kewei predicts that in the next ten years, the incremental demand for housing in the real estate industry will still reach about 10 billion square meters. However, in the next ten years, the incremental scale of the real estate industry will drop by about 30% compared with the past 10 years, and cement industry enterprises should be prepared to reduce production. In terms of

infrastructure, although a large number of stable growth measures have been introduced in China under the background of steady economic growth, infrastructure investment is expected to be fully developed, but the capital problem will be the key factor restricting the landing of infrastructure.

Overall, the pressure on the demand side of the cement industry will remain unchanged in 2023. The industry generally expects that the demand for cement will continue to shrink slightly throughout the year, and the cement market will be under great pressure. Qiao Longde, former president of

China Building Materials Federation, also pointed out at the industry summit that the cement industry is still facing many practical problems. Qiao Longde said that the current industry is more defensive than innovative. The price competition among enterprises around the market share is excessive, and the industry coordination and the overall view of the industry interests are insufficient. Although the technical equipment and production facilities are constantly improving, the price and efficiency of cement are declining, and the number of loss-making enterprises is increasing.

He suggested that industry enterprises should create and form a new pattern of stable development under the current situation, adhere to the effective practices of industry coordination in the past few years, and innovate the outdated and inapplicable ones.

Zhang Xuwu also believes that the more severe the situation we are facing, the more we need to strengthen our confidence in development, stabilize our development expectations, maintain our strategic strength, and strengthen our confidence and determination.

We should speed up the pace of industrial restructuring, unswervingly resolve excess capacity, strictly implement the policy of cement capacity replacement, resolutely curb new capacity in violation of regulations, ensure that the total capacity is only reduced but not increased, speed up the elimination of backward capacity, and revise and issue mandatory national standards for general Portland cement as soon as possible. By further improving the cement standard system such as quality technology, environmental protection and energy consumption, backward production capacity will be forced to withdraw. We should

also make unremitting efforts to do a good job in the normal peak staggering production of cement, strictly implement the notice of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment on further improving the normal peak staggering production of cement, promote the normalization of the area and time of the national peak staggering production of cement, further consolidate the achievements of capacity reduction, and promote the green and low-carbon development of the cement industry and the improvement of quality and efficiency.

In terms of jointly promoting the healthy development of the cement industry, Lu Yanchun, Director of the Price Monitoring Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, also put forward three points: first, to enhance confidence and seek new opportunities for the development of the cement industry; second, to enhance awareness of the overall situation and maintain market and price stability; third, to strengthen situation analysis and stabilize market expectations.

At the same time, Zheng Jianhui, chief analyst of China Cement Net · Cement Big Data Research Institute, said that the industry should have confidence, take action and regain consensus this year. At present, the cement industry should reach a consensus on five points: the situation of overcapacity has become more severe; the pressure of rising costs has increased unprecedentedly; the marginal utility of supply-side reform is decreasing; the demand platform period is facing breaking and the market scale is shrinking; reasonable profit is the premise of transformation and upgrading.

In addition, Zhang Liqun, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that the industry should speed up the construction of a new development pattern, focus on promoting high-quality development, and focus on expanding domestic demand to effectively cope with demand contraction.".

Facing new difficulties and challenges, Zhang Liqun believes that the industry should actively seize the development opportunities, develop and strengthen itself in a timely manner, and closely integrate the achievements of enterprise efficiency improvement with technological progress and green development capabilities.

Zhang Xuwu proposed that in the face of the current market situation, the cement industry should focus on greening and intellectualization, and further accelerate the pace of technological transformation and upgrading. In terms of

green development, we should focus on key areas and key links of energy conservation, carbon reduction and efficiency enhancement, and increase the transformation of energy conservation and carbon reduction technologies and the development and application of new energy conservation and carbon reduction technologies. In terms of

intelligent development, we should continue to implement the action plan for digital transformation of intelligent manufacturing in building materials industry issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. From 2021 to 2023, the cement industry information ecosystem construction action and intelligent manufacturing technology innovation action will be carried out to promote the automation, intellectualization and unmanned transformation of cement industry production mode.

Faced with China's "double carbon" goal, Qiao Longde said that today's enterprises should actively promote energy conservation and emission reduction, and March to a higher level. Relevant departments should also make unified plans and formulate standards from the aspects of technological breakthroughs, alternative energy sources, changing the way of energy use, and adjusting the industrial structure, and organize all links of the industrial chain to jointly promote innovation. Only by changing the traditional practice of fighting alone can we achieve the goal of double carbon.

At the meeting, many leading experts in the industry made suggestions on carbon emission reduction methods in the cement industry. Zhu Weiyuan, a researcher at Xiamen University, proposed that carbon emissions from cement manufacturing could be replaced by carbon-free synthetic fuel green ammonia NH3 instead of coal fuel, and that CCUS technology could be used to store and neutralize carbon emissions from cement raw materials.

Nowadays, digitalization and intellectualization have become the key for cement industry to meet market challenges and achieve low-carbon green development. Shao Jun said that in the future, China Cement Network will continue to use its experience and resources in the field of industry digitalization to promote the deep integration of industry digital economy and green development, and help the industry cope with cyclical changes and tide over difficulties as soon as possible. The torrent of

history is surging forward, and the key node of high-quality development of the cement industry has arrived. I believe that with the joint efforts of colleagues in the industry, the cement industry will surely usher in a promising future.