1. Definition and basic characteristics
of global cement trade Global cement import and export trade refers to the cross-border flow of cement and clinker between producing and consuming countries. Cement, as the core material of modern infrastructure and housing construction, has an average annual international trade volume of more than 10 billion US dollars, with an annual trade flow of more than 100 million tons, accounting for about 5% of the total global cement and clinker production.
International cement import and export trade is mainly by sea, supplemented by cross-border transportation by railway or truck. Although cement is a commodity with relatively low unit value, high weight and high transportation costs, it can still be transported economically over long distances by sea, which has led to the steady development of international trade in the past decades, forming a global trade network.
2. The main driving factors
of global cement trade The generation of global cement trade is mainly due to the structural imbalance between the production capacity and market demand of each region.
Cement manufacturing is a limestone and energy intensive industry, and production is concentrated in countries with abundant low-cost raw materials, energy sources (such as coal and petroleum coke), and favorable investment conditions. China, Vietnam, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have established large-scale production capacity by virtue of their resource advantages, resulting in varying degrees of oversupply. In this group of countries, cement producers have relatively low electricity and fuel costs, and their modern and efficient production lines have the advantage of economies of scale, which can supply cement and clinker at a much lower price than local production in the importing country.
At the same time, the rapid urbanization and infrastructure demand of emerging economies often temporarily exceed the speed of domestic capacity increase. Mature markets such as Europe and North America often face the problems of aging domestic factories and high costs, and generally need to rely on imports to solve the problem of insufficient domestic supply capacity.
In addition, the construction of port facilities and logistics network has also promoted the growth of global cement trade. Exporting countries in the
cement trade can efficiently transport locally oversupplied clinker and cement to coastal import terminals in countries with supply shortages by building cement plants on the coast, making international procurement more economical than building or expanding local integrated cement plants in land-scarce or high-cost environments such as Singapore, Qatar, Bangladesh and many African countries.
3. Transportation mode
of global cement trade Global cement import and export trade can be divided into waterway transportation (including inland waterway and sea transportation), land transportation (including road and railway transportation) and other modes of transportation (including air and pipeline transportation). Due to the low value of cement and the high proportion of transportation costs, in international cement trade and transportation, both sides of the trade seek cheaper and more convenient modes of transportation according to the actual transportation conditions. Among them, waterway transportation has become the most commonly used mode of transportation in the process of global cement trade because of its large single volume, long transportation distance and low freight.
According to the United Nations Trade Database, from 2001 to 2024, the proportion of cement import and export trade completed by waterway transportation has been maintained at about 60% for a long time. Among them, transnational shipping is the most important mode of waterway transport, accounting for about 50% of the total trade volume, while inland river shipping accounts for less than 10%. Land transportation is dominated by road transportation, while the proportion of railway is relatively low, and the overall transportation volume accounts for 2-4% of the total global cement trade volume. In addition, the import and export of cement in some regions are conducted by other means of transportation such as aviation and pipeline, accounting for less than 10% of the total.
From the trend point of view, since 2020, the proportion of water and land transport has declined, and the volume of cement trade through other modes of transport such as air transport has continued to rise. In the global cement import and export trade in 2024, the proportion of waterway transportation is about 62%, which is about 6 percentage points lower than that in 2020; the proportion of land transportation is 23%, which is about 7 percentage points lower than that in 2020; the proportion of other transportation modes such as aviation and pipeline is more than 14%, which is about 13 percentage points higher than that in 2020.
Figure 1: Proportion of Global Cement Trade by Various Transportation Means from 2001 to 2024 (Unit:%)
Data Source: Cement Big Data (https://data.ccement.com/)
IV. Scale and development of
global cement trade (I) Total volume and change trend
of export trade of cement and clinker Since 2001, the total volume of export trade of global cement and clinker has been in the range of 100-200 million tons per year, reaching more than 200 million tons in some years.
From the perspective of trend, during the period from 2001 to 2006, the total volume of global cement and clinker export trade showed an increasing trend year by year, with a compound annual growth rate of about 7.9%. From 2007 to 2009, the total volume of global cement and clinker export trade declined, with a compound annual growth rate of about -9.5%. From 2010 to 2021, the global cement and clinker export trade as a whole showed a volatile upward trend, with the peak annual export volume exceeding 250 million tons, with a compound annual growth rate of about 5.4%. Since 2022, the total volume of global cement and clinker export trade has fallen rapidly.
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