The Swiss cement industry achieved a solid start to production in the first quarter of 2026. Despite the sometimes severe winter weather conditions, the national cement output still reached 792000 tons, slightly higher than same period in 2025, showing the resilience of market demand. If the scope of observation is extended to all deliveries, a total of 795,100 tons were shipped in the first quarter, an increase of 0.4% over the same period last year, continuing the stabilization trend formed since the first quarter of last year.
Construction activity remained remarkably resilient during the winter. Despite the snowfall and local construction difficulties in mountainous areas such as Valais and Graubünden between January and March, most infrastructure, housing and housing projects have been carried out rapidly, ensuring the continuity of cement demand. From the perspective of customer structure, ready-mixed concrete plants are still the backbone of cement consumption, accounting for 72.73%; on-site concrete mixing stations for large construction sites received 166,600 tons, accounting for 20.95%, only a slight drop compared with the same period last year; the remaining share goes to concrete products manufacturers and inventory replenishment. Significant progress has been made in
product structure optimization, and low-carbon transformation has achieved remarkable results. The industry continues to invest heavily in product innovation and new cement marketing to systematically reduce the environmental footprint. The first quarter data showed that the proportion of CEM II cement with low clinker content reached a record high of 97.98%, while the share of traditional Portland cement (CEM I) has shrunk to only 1.46%, marking the substantial success of the industry's carbon reduction strategy.
However, the mode of logistics transportation has shown a trend contrary to climate goals. The share of rail transport has further declined to 33.10% from 36.29% in the same period last year, which means that two-thirds of cement deliveries now rely on road transport. Industry associations have expressed deep concern about this, pointing out that the framework conditions facing the single freight railway transport sector are becoming increasingly difficult, and the deterioration of the performance-price ratio has led to the contraction of railway freight transport for several months. The head of the association stressed that rail transport is crucial to achieving climate goals, and the industry will continue to pay close attention to changes in the policy environment for rail freight transport.
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