2025, Taiwan, China, imposed anti-dumping duties on Portland cement and clinker originating in Vietnam for a period of five years, ranging from 13.59% to 23.2%, which has been formally implemented since July 28, 2025. After the application of the Taiwan Cement Industry Association of China, the management launched an investigation in August 2024, which concluded that Vietnam Cement Company had dumped and caused significant damage to local producers in Taiwan. This anti-dumping case once again illustrates the risk of trade disputes faced by the cement industry in the international market.
1. Anti-dumping cases are increasing, and the risk in Asia is relatively high
. Over the past decade, there have been many anti-dumping cases against cement and clinker worldwide, and countries are increasingly inclined to adopt trade restrictive measures to protect their domestic industries from what they consider unfair competition. The cement industry is particularly vulnerable to such trade restrictions because of its capital-intensive nature and widespread regional overcapacity problems.
According to the statistics of China Cement Network Big Data Research Institute, from 2015 to 2025, eight anti-dumping cases were launched worldwide. The details are as follows:
Table 1: Anti-dumping cases
of cement clinker initiated worldwide during 2015-2025 Source: Cement Big Data (https://data.ccement.com/)
From the time of initiation, Over the past decade, 75% of anti-dumping cases were initiated after 2020, and nearly 40% of the total number of anti-dumping cases were initiated in 2024. It can be seen that in recent years, the contradiction between supply and demand of cement in some areas has become increasingly prominent, international trade frictions have intensified significantly, and the risk of export business of cement enterprises has increased.
From the perspective of the initiator and the anti-dumping target, more than 60% of the anti-dumping cases were initiated by Asian countries or regions in the past decade, and these cases were concentrated after 2022; at the same time, more than 60% of the anti-dumping cases were implemented by Asian countries. It can be seen that due to regional overcapacity and other factors, the trade imbalance in Asia is gradually becoming apparent, and the risk of trade disputes in cement import and export in related markets is increasing.
From the point of view of the products involved in anti-dumping cases, the vast majority of anti-dumping cases are mainly aimed at ordinary Portland cement, and only a few cases involve mixed cement and white cement products. In addition, because of the nature of clinker as an intermediate product, it is conducive to reducing the production cost of local cement enterprises, and it is often only used as an incidental product of anti-dumping against cement, so the possibility of directly implementing anti-dumping against the import and export of clinker is relatively low.
Generally speaking, the international cement trade situation is characterized by increasing risks, especially in Asia, where trade frictions against cement products are becoming more and more frequent. Choosing more suitable export destinations and optimizing the structure of export products have become important ideas for cement enterprises to avoid trade disputes.
Enterprises actively responded to changes in the external environment and adjusted the structure and flow
of export products. From 2016 to 2021, the cost of domestic factors gradually increased, the supply and demand structure was relatively balanced, the export power and price competitiveness of enterprises weakened, and the export volume of cement and clinker showed a downward trend year by year. Since 2022, the export volume of cement and clinker has shown a rapid growth trend for three consecutive years as the domestic market demand has shrunk sharply, the export willingness of enterprises has increased, and the international competitiveness has increased again after the rapid decline in prices.
From the perspective of export product structure, the proportion of clinker exports has risen sharply since 2025, basically returning to the level around 2016. In the first half of 2025, the total export volume of domestic clinker reached 1.4808 million tons, with a year-on-year increase of more than 500%, accounting for 36%
of the total export volume of cement and clinker.
Source: Cement Big Data (https://data.ccement.com/)
From the perspective of export flow, the proportion of cement and clinker exported from mainland China to other Asian countries or regions has decreased significantly in the past decade. From 44% in 2015 to about 28% in the first half of 2025; the proportion of exports to North America and Oceania dropped to 3% and 1% respectively, which decreased by about 8 percentage points compared with 2015.
At the same time, the proportion of cement and clinker exports from mainland China to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan increased significantly, accounting for about 35% of the total exports in the first half of 2025; the proportion of cement and clinker exports to Africa also showed an upward trend, accounting for nearly 30% in the first half of 2025, an increase of more than 5 percentage points compared with 2015; In addition, the proportion of Chinese cement and clinker exports to South America and Europe has also increased slightly.
Figure 2: Changes in China's cement and clinker export flows from 2015 to 2025 (Unit: 10,000 tons)
Source: Cement Big Data (https://data.ccement.com/)
Despite the increasing global trade frictions, However, China's cement going out is still an important development trend of the industry. In this context, Chinese cement enterprises actively adjust the structure of export products and export destinations, and Africa replaces other Asian countries and regions as the largest overseas export market to avoid trade disputes as far as possible. Generally speaking, the trade protection measures represented by anti-dumping will still exist for a long time in the world, and become an important external environmental factor affecting the growth of domestic cement and clinker exports, which requires continuous attention and active response from enterprises and government departments.
浙公网安备33010802003254号