Famous experts and experts gathered to express their views from different perspectives. China Cement Network has set up a column entitled "Talking about Cement Cold and Warm", interviewing many enterprise leaders and industry experts in the cement industry. In this issue, we interviewed experts who have worked in the field of building materials for a long time.
"In 2024, cement demand was flat or slightly increased compared with 2023." The expert believes that from the perspective of infrastructure, the demand for cement this year will not be lower than that in 2023, because the number of projects started in 2023 has increased, and this year will gradually enter the civil construction period. However, the real estate situation is uncertain, and the poor improvement of real estate projects should be a big probability event, which has a negative impact on cement demand. However, with the change of young people's concept of marriage, marriage and fertility, the urgent demand for the improvement of existing housing conditions, the further increase of urbanization rate, and the implementation of the new real estate policy, the arrival of the next round of stable growth in housing demand may take some time, but it will not be too long.
"It is optimistic that cement prices will stabilize at the level of 2023 this year when demand is limited and the scale of production capacity may actually increase." The expert said that there is a consensus in the industry on the urgency and difficulty of capacity removal. Looking back, it should be said that the cement industry should have missed a good opportunity to reduce production capacity, and now it is a little difficult to reduce production capacity. Recently, a cement group leader who is not from the so-called "authentic" building materials system said that it is difficult to establish an industrial M & a fund together. Therefore, he believes that the fundamental reason for capacity removal is not "rational capacity removal", but "rigid capacity removal". He also firmly stated that "in the end, the market competition is about cost and capital". The expert feels the same way about this. Indeed, whether it is the establishment of a fund for capacity removal (which has been mentioned for many years) or rational capacity removal, the actual operation involves a wide range of difficulties. The essence of serious over capacity is the unreasonable allocation of resources, but also rely on the invisible hand of the market, which can play a decisive role. However, it has become normal to increase the number of off-peak production days every year and to open and stop kilns for a while. As a result, the demand in the industry has declined considerably, but the scale of production capacity is still expanding. Under the serious imbalance between supply and demand, people are more accustomed to the way of "living is better than dying" to balance supply and demand.
In the expert's view, the competent authorities should have a clear guiding principle on how to normalize peak-staggering production. Willful peak-staggering is not conducive to the healthy ecology of the cement industry. To a certain extent, it may also protect the production capacity with low competitiveness, or even backward production capacity. It is precisely because the industry once "indulged" in high investment stimulated by high profits that it can be said that it has lost a good opportunity to resolve the serious overcapacity.
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