Guizhou’s emerging building-materials industry is developing rapidly and serves as a valuable model.

In recent years, driven by Guizhou Province’s vigorous implementation of the strategies to strengthen the province through industry and to promote development through urbanization, the emerging construction materials industry has experienced rapid growth, emerging as a new engine for the province’s economic development.

Data show that Guizhou Province currently has 1,668 construction enterprises employing a total of 820,000 people, with rural residents accounting for 20% of the province’s net increase in employment. Over the past three years, the provincial construction sector has paid RMB 240 billion in wages to rural migrant workers. Meanwhile, the total output value of the building materials industry has surpassed RMB 100 billion, officially entering the “hundred-billion-yuan” club and achieving the “12th Five-Year Plan” target one year ahead of schedule.

Guizhou Province has a total of 1,668 construction enterprises.

820,000 employees

Employment of rural residents accounts for 20% of the province’s total new jobs.

The province’s construction industry has paid RMB 240 billion in wages to rural migrant workers over the past three years.

Annual output value of the building materials industry exceeds RMB 100 billion.

In 2014, the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government proposed cultivating the new-type construction materials industry into a key pillar industry for Guizhou Province. As a result, the province’s construction and building-materials sectors have entered a critical strategic period of latecomer catch-up and leapfrog development.

Guizhou, currently in a phase of accelerated new-type industrialization and new-type urbanization, is investing unprecedented resources in the construction of transportation, water conservancy, and other infrastructure, generating enormous demand for the construction industry and building-material products and thereby providing vast room for development and significant opportunities for the growth of the new-type construction and building-materials sector.

Progress has been made in structural adjustment. The pace of technological advancement has accelerated, with greater efforts being invested in upgrading traditional building-material technologies—such as cement and wall materials—through the adoption of advanced and appropriate technologies. At the same time, research and development of new types of wall materials have achieved significant progress.

By the end of 2014, all mechanically operated shaft kilns in the province had been phased out, and 83 new dry-process production lines had been completed and put into operation, with clinker capacity reaching 83.18 million tonnes and cement capacity reaching 105.65 million tonnes. In 2014, cement output totaled 93.87 million tonnes, with bulk cement supply reaching 41.1238 million tonnes, resulting in a bulk cement penetration rate of 43.8%, an increase of 7.18 percentage points over the previous year.

From 2011 to 2014, the province cumulatively phased out 20.044 million tonnes of outdated cement production capacity. A number of new-type wall-material production lines featuring advanced technologies and strong demonstration and leading effects were completed and put into operation, raising the share of new-type wall materials to over 60%. Production of non-fired products, primarily aerated concrete blocks and autoclaved fly-ash bricks, has steadily increased, accounting for approximately 35% of total wall-material output. The proportion of sintered hollow blocks made from coal gangue, high-fly-ash-content shale, and other such materials within the overall sintered-products category has risen year by year. Meanwhile, composite self-insulating blocks, fly-ash expanded-clay pellets and related products have filled market gaps in Guizhou Province.

Significant progress has been made in energy conservation and emissions reduction. Since the 12th Five-Year Plan period, high-efficiency grinding technologies such as pure low-temperature waste heat power generation have been rapidly promoted, leading to a marked decline in the comprehensive energy consumption per unit of product. To date, a total of 41 pure low-temperature waste heat power stations have been built across the province, with a combined installed capacity of 238 megawatts, capable of generating 1.2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually and saving the equivalent of 400,000 tons of standard coal each year. Furthermore, denitrification facilities have been completed and put into operation at 52 new dry-process cement production lines throughout the province. Building materials enterprises have also achieved the comprehensive utilization of more than 30 million tons of various industrial solid wastes.

By integrating the development concepts of energy conservation, environmental protection, low carbon emissions, and green practices into the development of the building materials industry, Guizhou Province’s building materials sector will compose a symphony of green development.