China Central Television’s (CCTV) flagship morning news program, Zhao Wen Tian Xia (Morning News), featured a comprehensive report today on China's building materials industry in the first quarter of this year. The report highlighted a distinct trend of continuous industrial restructuring and upgrading, with green development serving as the core strategic focus. In response to downward pressures in traditional sectors, the industry has proactively accelerated structural adjustments and improved capacity utilization. Notably, the advanced new materials sector showed robust momentum, emerging as a major new growth engine for the industry.
In an interview with CCTV, Yan Xiaofeng, Chairman of the China Building Materials Federation (CBMF), noted that guided by the coordinated policies of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and other central authorities, the market scale for green building materials maintained rapid growth in Q1, laying a solid foundation for the industry’s full-year performance.
The broadcast also covered the industry's digital and intelligent transformation, comprehensive solid waste management, the expansion of the new building materials market, and the surging export of high-end products.
The following is translated from the CCTV News App:
In the first quarter of this year, while China's traditional building materials sector continued to face downward pressure, structural optimization accelerated, and green development emerged as the core growth engine for the industry's transformation.
Data reveals that the building materials industry has accelerated its green transition, phasing out a cumulative 29.8 million tons of inefficient production capacity, which allowed the capacity utilization rate to rebound after stabilizing. Advanced inorganic non-metallic materials, represented by photovoltaic (PV) glass, fiberglass, and derivatives, are booming. Demand for PV glass accounted for nearly 50% of the total demand for flat glass, while the total profit of the fiberglass and derivatives sector surged by 130% year-on-year.
Green building materials achieved simultaneous growth in both market volume and profitability. As of the end of the first quarter, the number of certified green building material products in China increased by 5% compared to the end of 2025, driving a 16.2% year-on-year increase in the industry's total profits.
Yan Xiaofeng, President of the China Building Materials Federation, stated:
"The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, along with nine other government departments, jointly issued the Implementation Plan for the High-Quality Development of the Green Building Materials Industry to guide the sector's green transformation. In the first quarter of this year, the revenue of the green building materials sector surpassed 61 billion RMB, maintaining a robust growth rate of 12%. This lays a solid foundation for the industry as it strives to hit its annual revenue target of 300 billion RMB."
Currently, industrial upgrading and technological innovation in China's building materials sector are advancing rapidly. The application of "AI+ Building Materials" large language models in sectors like cement is driving high-quality development through digital and intelligent empowerment.
The industry's green initiatives have yielded remarkable results, utilizing over 1.8 billion tons of solid waste annually, with the alternative raw material rate of solid waste in cement reaching nearly 28%. Driven by strong demand from the new energy and rail transit sectors, the output of PV glass and fiberglass yarn grew significantly. Furthermore, the export value of building materials increased by 13.5% year-on-year, with exports of high-end products—such as ultra-thin glass and semiconductor quartz crucibles—surging by over 30%, reflecting the industry's continuously rising international competitiveness.
Editor: Zhang Hanwen
Reviewer: Shen Yulu, Li Yuemei
