Analysis on the Economic Operation situation of Building Materials Industry in 2019 since 2018

Since the beginning of this year, the overall economic operation of the building materials industry has remained stable, showing a stable and changing operating characteristics. On the one hand, in recent years, the building materials industry has focused on promoting supply-side structural reform, and under the joint action of environmental protection, quality, off-peak production and other comprehensive means, it is committed to industrial structure adjustment and control of production capacity release. The result of efforts to maintain the dynamic balance between supply and demand in the market. On the other hand, structural contradictions such as serious overcapacity have not been effectively alleviated, the decline in market demand, the lack of endogenous power of enterprises still exist, and the downward pressure on the industry continues to accumulate. 

I. General situation of Economic Operation of Building Materials Industry since the beginning of this year. 

1. The economic benefits of the building materials industry remain stable. From January to August, the building materials industry above the scale realized the main business income of 3 trillion yuan, with a total profit of 246.3 billion yuan. Among them, cement, flat glass industry main business revenue growth slowed, profit growth narrowed. The main business income of concrete and cement products, glass fiber and composite materials, sanitary ceramics, waterproof materials, light building materials, thermal insulation materials, limestone, technical glass, non-metallic mineral products and other industries remained stable. However, compared with the actual sales revenue of the previous year, most industries showed a decline. 

3. The average ex-factory price of building materials products has stabilized. The ex-factory price index of building materials and non-metallic mineral products was 110.7 in August, up 0.1 percentage points from the previous month. From January to August, the average ex-factory price rose 11.7% over the same period last year, which continued to slow down by 0.2 percentage points from January to July. Among them, the national average ex-factory price of cement continued to decline by 1.1% in August compared with the previous month, and the average ex-factory price increased by 23.1% from January to August compared with the same period last year. The average ex-factory price of flat glass was 0.2% lower than that of the previous month, and the average ex-factory price from January to August was 7.3% higher than that of the same period last year. 

II. The main problems facing the Economic Operation of the Building Materials Industry at present. 

1. The internal and external factors are intertwined, and the pressure of economic operation of the industry continues to accumulate. The yield of traditional building materials decreased obviously. In recent years, the growth rate of fixed assets investment in China has continued to decline. From January to August, the growth rate of fixed asset investment was only 5.3% compared with the same period last year. The market increment almost disappeared. About 75% of the investment-driven building materials industry was in the case of overcapacity and low investment. Has begun to be forced to turn to the stock market. However, the emerging market of building materials, whether in scale or from the market scope, is still in the stage of transformation or cultivation. The market power of the building materials industry has changed fundamentally. At the same time, under the influence of the policy environment, the uncertainty of enterprise operating environment and other factors, the relationship between supply and demand in the industry market is generally in the process of rebalancing and readjusting the supply and demand structure under the condition of weak demand, and the speed has been accelerated. The risk of operation has increased. 

3. The problem of overcapacity has not yet been fundamentally improved, and the removal of stock capacity should be accelerated. By 2017, the national cement clinker production capacity was 1.9 billion tons, and the cement production capacity was more than 3.6 billion tons. In 2017, the utilization rate of national cement production capacity was less than 65 percent. So far this year, the demand in the cement market is still weak. In the first eight months of this year, the utilization rate of cement production capacity in China is only 57%, while that in parts of Northeast and Northwest China is only about 30%. In recent years, with the improvement of the efficiency of the industry, measures such as self-discipline and off-peak production have played an obvious role in limiting production rather than eliminating production capacity, but this has also led to obvious enterprise differentiation and regional differentiation in the whole industry. The problem of overcapacity is far from easing or even accumulating. To resolve the problem of overcapacity in the cement industry, it is necessary to speed up the transformation from curbing new production capacity in the past to structural and systematic removal of production capacity. 

5. At present, the prices of building materials products lack further upward momentum. The ex-factory prices of the building materials industry have continued to decline since 2014, bottomed out after the first quarter of 2016, and the ex-factory prices of building materials and non-mineral products continued to recover in 2017. They have been fluctuating steadily since reaching an all-time high at the beginning of this year. It has become the main factor for the steady growth of industry efficiency in the case of the overall weakening of market demand since the beginning of this year. However, since the second half of the year, the weakening of the demand market has led to a decline in the output of some building materials products, and the prices of building materials and non-mining factories have fallen back and adjusted. Affected by the base from which prices remained high in the second half of last year, price growth will fall back significantly in the second half of last year. Under the action of both price growth and market demand, the economic growth rate of the building materials industry will decline obviously, and the downward pressure of economic operation will continue to be enlarged. 

III. Preliminary study on the Operation of Building Materials Industry in the whole year. 

According to the judgment of macro operation and relevant policy factors, investment in fixed assets throughout the country is expected to stabilize in the second half of the year, and measures to encourage consumption will continue to play a role. Building materials industry market demand is weak, the overall stable macro market environment will continue; Industry supply-side structural adjustment will be accelerated, industry self-discipline will continue to be strengthened, industry market supply and demand is expected to maintain a dynamic balance, prices are relatively stable. Under the comprehensive influence of the change of market structure, policy environment, management mode, production factors and so on, the economic operation of the industry will show obvious volatility characteristics. 

According to comprehensive judgment, the building materials industry will maintain a stable and changing development pattern in 2018, supply-side structural reform and environmental constraints will become two key factors, external demand will tighten, and market risks will accumulate. The characteristic of stable operation of volatility is obvious. It is expected that the growth rate for the whole year will be high before and then low, and the main business revenue of industries above scale will maintain moderate growth.