Recently, the People's Bank of China and the National Bureau of Statistics successively released the financial data and economic data for March 2024. The observation and analysis of the Cement Big Data Research Institute are as follows:
(1) The scale of social financing: In March 2024, the scale of social financing increased by 4.87 trillion yuan. The stock of social finance increased by 8.7% year-on-year, down 0.3 percentage points from the previous value. In March, the pace of local government special bond issuance was still relatively slow, with government bond financing increasing by 464.2 billion yuan in that month, an increase of 137.3 billion yuan less than the same period last year. From the credit side, RMB loans increased by 32 thousand and 900 yuan, an increase of 656 billion 100 million yuan less than the same period. Among them, residential loans increased by 940.6 billion yuan, an increase of 304.1 billion yuan less than the same period last year, and short-term and medium-term and long-term demand was weaker than the same period last year. Medium and long-term loans to enterprises and institutions increased by 1.60 trillion yuan, an increase of 470 billion yuan less than the same period last year, and the growth was also relatively weak. The increment of social finance in March is slightly higher than the market expectation, but from the structural point of view, there is still a problem of insufficient demand for real financing.
(2) Output of cement: The output of cement from January to March 2024 was 33684 10,000 tons, representing a year-on-year decrease of 11.8% and an increase of 10.2 percentage points as compared with the previous value. According to the full-caliber calculation, the output of cement in January-March decreased by 16.3% compared with the same period last year. In March, the domestic temperature gradually rose and the construction conditions improved compared with the previous period. However, due to the shortage of new real estate projects and the low rate of capital arrival at the infrastructure end, the recovery of downstream demand was not as good as the market expectation, and the market performance was still relatively weak. On the supply side, the production load of southern enterprises has increased, but the northern region has been affected by inventory pressure, partially delayed the opening of kilns, and the overall output has remained at a low level. Overall, the supply and demand of cement market in March was still weak, and the price of cement fluctuated lower.
(3) Market outlook: In April, with the gradual implementation of the previous policies, the rate of funds in place for downstream projects will increase, and the demand for cement is expected to improve to a certain extent compared with the previous period. At the same time, some areas with delayed kiln opening in the north are about to end peak staggering, and most enterprises in the south are entering normal production state, so cement production is expected to show a ring-to-ring growth trend. However, the current industry inventory pressure still exists, supply release will be restrained, cement production in April will remain at a low level year-on-year.
