In December, the trend of domestic concrete market showed obvious seasonal and regional characteristics. Affected by the cold weather, construction activities in the northern region have been greatly reduced, and only a few key projects are still in progress, resulting in the basic stagnation of market activities. In contrast, although there is a local demand for rush work in the southern region, the actual concrete shipments are expected to decline steadily due to poor capital repayment and insufficient number of new orders. In terms of
cost, the rise of upstream raw material prices has slowed down, which indicates that it is difficult to further strengthen the support for the concrete market. Specifically, cement prices were stable in December as a whole, with a slight downward shock in some areas, while sand and gravel prices were slightly fine-tuned. The impact of these cost-side changes on concrete prices is relatively limited, and it is difficult to push prices up substantially.
Based on the above factors, the domestic concrete market demand weakened in December as a whole, and the concrete price index is expected to decline steadily. Although the demand for new projects in some regions such as East China and South China has been released in the fourth quarter, the overall market is affected by capital and climate, and it is difficult to achieve strong growth. Concrete enterprises are still facing greater challenges in operation, and need to respond to market changes by controlling costs and improving efficiency.
