BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Cement demand in China is projected to stay at about 2.3 billion tonnes this year, according to the China Cement Association.
The association explains that infrastructure and real estate will still play a strong role in supporting and driving the demand which may not be greatly affected by the epidemic from the perspective of the whole year of 2020, though the release of demand has been delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
According to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, due to insufficient demand and a significant decline in sales, the operating income of the cement industry is expected to decline by more than 40 percent in the first two months of the year.
It is worth noting that with the improvement in the epidemic control, the cement enterprises have entered the fast track of work resumption.
Provinces of Jiangsu, Shanxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Gansu, Henan, and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have seen full operation of the cement clinker production lines on Wednesday, according to incomplete statistics from ccement.com, a cement information provider.
"The clinker production line has just started operation and the production capacity has been restored by 80 percent," said head of a large cement manufacturer in Jilin Province, adding that "at present, the clinker sales mainly digest the inventory at the end of last year, and the pressure on the company's inventory has continued to ease. With the improvement in epidemic control, transportation difficulties have been resolved."
"Affected by the epidemic, construction on the infrastructure projects have started slowly, and the entire engineering and construction industries have not yet fully resumed work. For cement companies, the biggest difficulty in the next step is the demand in the end market," an industry insider told the Shanghai Securities News. (Edited by Hu Pingchao with Xinhua Silk Road, hupingchao@xinhua.org)
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