On October 16, the executive meeting of the State Council discussed and adopted in principle the Price Law of the People's Republic of China (Draft Amendment) and decided to submit it it to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for consideration.
The meeting proposed that we should "govern low-price and disorderly competition according to law and regulations, improve industry cost investigation, stop low-price dumping and other supporting rules".
For the cement industry, which is in the most severe downward cycle in history, this set of rules comes at the right time. According to the latest data from
the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to September 2026, the national cement output was 1.131 billion tons, down 8% from the same period last year.
On the profit side, according to the calculation of the Cement Big Data Research Institute, the total profit loss of the whole industry in the first half of the year was about 4 billion yuan, with a loss of about 60%. Of the 21 listed companies, only one had revenue growth, 8 had profits and 13 had losses. On
the price side, the national cement price index at the end of June was 280.43 points, down 7.9% from the beginning of the year and 15
% from the same period last year. The whole industry sold 16. 2019 was the most profitable year for the industry, with a total profit of 186.7 billion yuan. In the past six years alone, it has made less than one-sixth of its original money.
Production is falling, prices are falling, and profits are collapsing. These three things are actually one thing: the price will not rise. Low price is the result, not the cause. Wu Qingtao, president of
China Building Materials Federation, calculated an account at the clinker production monitoring experience exchange meeting on July 30 : the national clinker production capacity 15.
However, the actual production capacity has exceeded the filing scale for a long time. More production can occupy more market, and price will no longer reflect cost and supply and demand, but become a pure share tool. The more it falls, the more it loses, and the more it loses, the more it needs to protect the quantity-this cycle can not be achieved by the self-discipline of enterprises.
So the method given this time is not to limit the price, but to check the cost. The General Administration of
Market Supervision summarized this set of measures as "1 + 1 + N" : a price law, a "Regulation on Stopping Low-Price Dumping", and the cost calculation standards formulated by various trade associations.
On September 10, the State Development and Reform Commission and the General Administration of Market Supervision issued the Notice on Cost Accounting of Low-price and Disorderly Competition for Important Industrial Products (Development and Reform Price [2026] 1303). The rules are written in detail:
cost accounting is based on the individual cost of specific products produced by enterprises in principle; when it is impossible to calculate, the average cost of the industry is referred to and a certain downward floating is considered; The average cost of the industry is calculated and determined by the industry associations and other institutions under the guidance of the regulatory authorities, and the industries with large regional cost differences can be calculated in different regions.
The third sentence is almost tailor-made for cement. Cement is a regional product with limited transportation radius, and the cost of coal and limestone varies greatly from place to place, which can not be measured by a national average price. Zhou Yuxian, president of China Cement Association, has stated at the Pan-Northeast Conference that three provinces and one region can first carry out cost accounting exploration and form a quantitative model.
Checking the cost is not to listen to the number reported by the enterprise itself. When they were found out, it was useless to just say "I didn't lose money." They had to spread out the account book: how much coal was bought per ton, how much electricity was paid, how much depreciation was shared, and how much wages were paid, one by one. Compared
with off-peak production, these are two different ways. Staggered peak regulation is the output, the market can resume production as soon as it warms up; cost regulation is aimed at price behavior.
But there is a limit to what it can do. Cost regulation can control "improper low price", can not control "reasonable low price", and can not replace capacity. 15.
The price law can draw a bottom line, but not the market.
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