Over 50% world's new cement plants to be in China

The number of newly-built cement plants in China will surpass the total number of new ones to be built in the rest of the world in the coming years, a top global cement industry official has said.

"China not only produced one-third of world's cement, but also enjoyed the fastest-growing cement market in the past 10 years which has created vast room for investment," said Malcolm Shelbourne, a senior global industry official at the 18th International Cement Conference (Intercem) in Beijing.

Although the Chinese government permits wholly foreign--invested cement companies, foreign investment accounts for 1.5 per cent of the industry so far, while the proportions are 50 per cent in developed nations in Europe and North America, 60 per cent in Thailand and 80 per cent in Indonesia.

China's large-scale cement enterprises will enter the world's top 10 with their fast advancing cement techniques, Shelbourne said, adding that a single Chinese plant can produce the same amount of cement as that of many international plants in different regions.

President of the China National Non-Metallic Minerals Industry Corporation (Group), Tan Zhongming said that China's cement industry will speed up its restructuring in the next 10 years, because only 20 per cent of cement is produced through environmentally-friendly new techniques currently, and the investment cost has dropped sharply with maturing technology.

Statistics show that China, with a total capacity of over 700 million tonnes, has become the world's largest cement producer since 1985.

The total value of China's cement industry in the first half of 2003 reached 82 billion yuan ($9.9 billion), the highest level in recent years.