Five-year Action Plan for Multimodal Transport was issued to reduce the cost of cement logistics and speed up the reconstruction of market radius.

State Council's latest Action Plan for Implementing Multimodal Transport to Break Through Blocking Points (2026-2030) clearly States that it will take about five years to promote about 1000 major freight transport nodes to enhance the function of multimodal transport, and the one-hour reloading rate of multimodal transport will exceed 90%. The railway entry rate of multimodal transport ports in coastal ports has reached 80%, and the railway entry rate of major ports in the Yangtze River trunk line has reached 100%. Although

this five-year plan focusing on the "nerve endings" of the logistics system is not directly aimed at the cement industry, it points to the three major demands of "improving the efficiency of replacement, optimizing the transport structure and expanding the transport radius", which will have a far-reaching impact on the competition pattern of the cement industry from the two dimensions of logistics cost and market boundary.

Cement is a typical "short-leg product". The radius of highway transportation is usually not more than 200-300 kilometers, and the logistics cost often accounts for 20% -30% of the terminal price. The plan clearly defines "planning and construction of comprehensive freight corridors between tens of millions of standard container ports and key inland ports", and promotes the optimization of security inspection of container rail-water intermodal transport and the standardization of "one single system" business process.

This means that, on the one hand, the increase of railway entry rate will drive coastal and riverside enterprises to obtain lower transportation costs of raw materials and finished products through "public transit railway and public transit water", and the trans-regional transportation of coal, slag and clinker will be more economical; On the other hand, the promotion of "one single system", "one box system" and "one price" will greatly reduce the cost of document circulation and loading and unloading waiting. The hard indicator of

"the one-hour replacement rate of multimodal transport exceeds 90%" is also worthy of attention. The improvement of reloading efficiency will directly alleviate the problem of "re-empty return"-under the traditional mode, cement clinker often needs to be reloaded and unloaded many times before it can be loaded on the ship after it is transported to the port by railway, while the mode of "cross-dock operation and shared yard" promoted by the scheme allows the cargo to be reloaded directly in the port yard, and the loading and unloading time is greatly reduced. The cost of cement enterprises in the west to transport to the coastal areas of East China will be further reduced, and cement clinker from other provinces will flow more smoothly into the high-priced market. Hard constraints on

railway entry rate force the plan to reshape

the coastal pattern along the Yangtze River to put forward clear requirements for railway entry rate for coastal ports and Yangtze River trunk ports-80% for coastal ports and 100% for Yangtze River trunk ports. The transmission path of this hard constraint to the cement industry is clear: from the supply side, the improvement of railway access capacity will strengthen the "coastal + Yangtze River" cement clinker logistics channel. Further open up the space for leading enterprises such as Conch Cement , Huaxin Cement and China Building Materials to allocate clinker across regions, and the coverage radius of regional leading market will be extended further; From the perspective of competition pattern, the enterprises along the Yangtze River, which originally relied on the Yangtze River waterway transportation to build cost advantages, will face a more intense impact of clinker outside the province under the dual channel of "railway + waterway", and the regional price difference will be further narrowed.

The deeper impact is that the scheme emphasizes "direct loading of goods through cross-warehouse operation and shared yard" and "upgrading the function of specialized information platform". This means that the traditional "clinker base-grinding station-construction site" sectional transportation mode in the cement industry will be replaced by more efficient "door-to-door" logistics. Leading enterprises will further consolidate their competitive advantages by virtue of multi-base layout and integrated logistics business; small and medium-sized enterprises lacking integrated logistics capabilities will continue to squeeze their market share. Provisions such as "improving the layout of standardized charging (replacement) power stations, promoting the effective coverage of heavy trucks and off-road mobile machinery, shore power and ship high-power charging (replacement) power stations" in the equipment upgrading

scheme of

clean transportation and new energy application forced industry put forward clear requirements for the green upgrading of logistics equipment in cement industry. At present, the

cement industry has a high proportion of heavy truck transportation, which is the key source of carbon emissions in the logistics sector. The promotion and application of new energy heavy trucks will become an important starting point for leading enterprises to reduce carbon emissions.

From the perspective of supporting policies, the plan clearly States that "all kinds of funds and policies should be actively used to support it" and "pilot projects should be carried out to build a strong transportation country through multimodal transport blockages". This means that the next five years will usher in a round of investment boom around the construction of multimodal transport hub-the access of special port railway lines, the renewal of intelligent handling equipment, and the layout of new energy heavy truck power stations, which will generate considerable demand for equipment procurement and engineering construction. Cement leading enterprises with integrated logistics integration capabilities will take the lead.

Consensus outlook: Logistics channel reshapes the industry boundary

. The real weight of the multimodal transport plan lies in its systematic reshaping of the logistics channel structure and market radius of the cement industry. When the railway entry rate of 80% along the coast and 100% along the Yangtze River falls to the ground, and when the one-hour replacement rate of multimodal transport breaks through 90%, the traditional regional market pattern with provincial boundaries will be completely broken-it will be more common for the western cement clinker to be transported eastward, the production capacity along the Yangtze River to radiate the coastal areas, and the grinding stations in East China to use imported clinker.

In the next step, the industry needs to focus on three aspects of the implementation rhythm: first, the preparation progress of the implementation plan of "one point one policy" in each province, especially the logistics channel planning of the western cement province; second, the release of the list of multimodal transport demonstration enterprises, whether the leading cement enterprises enter the cultivation sequence of integrated logistics integrators; Third, the actual application cost and promotion rhythm of new energy heavy truck and intelligent handling equipment in cement industry. Every upgrade of the

logistics channel is an expansion of the competitive dimension of the cement industry. When the standard rules of railway, port, highway and aviation are truly recognized, the competition in the cement industry will be upgraded from a single price game to a comprehensive competition of "capacity layout + logistics system + green equipment".