2024, the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China first put forward the idea of "preventing vicious competition of involution", which marked the formal rise of anti-involution to the national level. In December 2024, the Central Economic Work Conference further emphasized the "comprehensive rectification of involution competition", indicating that the state attaches increasing importance to involution issues. In 2025, anti-involution became an important theme of social and economic development, and a series of policies and actions were launched one after another. On March 5,
2025, General Secretary Xi Jinping, participating in the deliberations of the Jiangsu delegation of the National People's Congress, stressed that we should deepen the reform of market-oriented allocation of factors and take the initiative to eliminate "involution" competition. This policy orientation not only reflects the country's profound understanding of economic restructuring, but also points out the direction for future economic development.
Since 2022, China's cement industry has officially entered a downward cycle, the demand reduction has led to the intensification of the contradiction between supply and demand in the market, and the vicious competition in the industry is serious.
1. In the first half of 2024, the cement industry suffered a loss for the first time in the new century. In 2024, although the domestic cement production decreased by only 9.8%, due to the spread of panic in the industry (especially in the first three quarters), the industry "involution" was serious, the price competition was fierce, and the regional market price war broke out. from 2019 to 2024 , and the cement price has fallen below the cost price. The serious "involution" vicious competition in the cement industry is also reflected in the price. According to the data of China Cement Network, the average price of domestic cement has been declining since 2022. The national average price of cement in 2024 is about 16 yuan/ton lower than that in 2023 and 146 yuan/ton lower than that in 2021. In terms of specific prices, due to the serious "involution" in 2024, the price of cement continued to decline, and the price of cement hovered around 200 yuan/ton for a long time, and the price of cement in some areas once dropped to about 160 yuan/ton. Has been divorced from the actual production cost of cement. 
The above cost is only the production cost, and does not include a series of additional costs such as the cost of three expenses. Therefore, the actual sales price of cement should be more than 250 yuan/ton, which basically covers the production cost of advanced enterprises in the industry. In the case of long-term sales of about 200 yuan/ton in 2024, enterprises in the industry are basically in a loss.
3. Domestic cement price ranks second to last in the world. China Cement Network Market Data Center shows that China is the global cement price depression, only slightly higher than penultimate Iran, and much lower than Southeast Asian countries with the same serious overcapacity.
 and about $65 (about 475 yuan) lower, respectively. </p><p style=)
In small and medium-sized private enterprises, the staff reduction is more obvious. Taking a private enterprise as an example, the number of employees in 2024 will decrease by 902 in 2021, with a decrease of 33.5
. It is suggested that government departments introduce corresponding measures to curb the "involution" vicious competition
in the cement industry. 1. Standardize the market competition order. Strictly crack down on low-price dumping, impose fines or restrict production on vicious competitive enterprises that sell substantially below the cost price, and even consider setting the lowest guidance price to provide price reference for the cement industry. At the same time, we should strengthen industry self-discipline, promote enterprises in the industry to form self-discipline conventions, establish a cross-regional coordination mechanism, achieve a national chess game, maintain the relative stability of the market situation, and maintain reasonable profits of the cement industry.
2. Continue to deepen supply-side reform. On the one hand, according to the requirements of environmental protection, the government departments should issue peak-staggering production documents in combination with the environmental quality of various regions, and do a good job of implementation supervision to ensure the implementation of policies in place; On the other hand, in order to promote mergers and reorganizations and enhance industrial concentration, the government has introduced supporting policies in terms of taxation and financing to encourage leading enterprises to lead industry integration, reduce the number of small and medium-sized enterprises through mergers and acquisitions, and optimize the market structure. At the same time, the government has given policy support to enterprises that take the initiative to reduce production capacity by shutting down production lines.
3. Strengthen the mechanism of "supporting the superior and limiting the inferior". Based on the dimensions of energy consumption, environmental protection and product quality, production restriction standards are formulated to encourage production lines with low energy consumption, low pollutant emissions and high product quality to produce more, and vice versa.
4. Strengthen the withdrawal mechanism of production capacity. Based on the dimensions of energy consumption, environmental protection and product quality, we should formulate elimination standards, shut down backward production capacity, and establish a compensation mechanism or tax preferential mechanism for capacity withdrawal to encourage enterprises to shut down and withdraw. Since the second half of
2024, based on the spirit of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on July 30, the cement industry has strengthened industry self-discipline and prevented "involution" vicious competition, and the operation situation of the industry is obviously better than that in the first half of the year. The cement industry has increased from a loss of 1.6 billion yuan in the first half of the year to a profit of 26 billion yuan in the whole year, which is far from the normal profit level of the industry, but it shows the importance of "anti-involution".
In 2025, domestic cement demand is expected to continue to decline by 5% -8%, and the "anti-involution" struggle still has a long way to go, and it is difficult to achieve stable development only within the industry. Only when the industry and the government work together, can we put an end to the vicious competition of "involution", promote the industry to cross the cycle and break through the predicament.
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