As many of you will know, I have long been sceptical of Chinese statistics, and cement production statistics in particular. As you will see on page 46 of this issue, one official body in China, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) suggests that there are 418 cement production lines currently under construction with a total capacity of 620Mt, and another 147 lines with a capacity of 210Mt waiting to begin construction. Global Cement Magazine reports the numbers, but I'm afraid I don't necessarily believe in them. The country does not have enough economic activity to produce anywhere near the amount of cement that it claims to consume (Chinas economy is now the size of Japans, not ten times larger), and although there are many large cities and the east coast is well-developed, there are still 300m farmers and 150m people who live on less than 2 dollars/day in China. To suggest that China's per capital cement consumption is higher than Singapore's at the height of its development curve is ridiculous. My own feeling is that China produces and consumes in the order of 400-600Mt of cement per year, less than half of its stated total. That said, the total is still around twice the per capita cement consumption of India.
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