The Party Central Committee has explicitly proposed that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, economic and social development must adhere to promoting high-quality development as the theme. To this end, the China Building Materials Federation proposed the construction of a high-quality development indicator system for the building materials industry, and through the compilation of the "Report on High-Quality Development of China's Building Materials Industry," aims to guide and push the entire industry to accelerate its transition toward high-quality development, with the goal of effectively improving quality, efficiency, and benefits.
The high-quality development of the building materials industry should encompass 6 dimensions: foundational support, quality and efficiency of development, innovation-driven development, green transformation, shared value, and open interconnectivity. These are further refined into 15 secondary indicators and 30 tertiary indicators, thereby constructing and forming the high-quality development indicator system for the industry to quantitatively analyze the achievements of the industry's high-quality development and propose the directions and paths for accelerating the industry's high-quality development in the future.
Why must we promote high-quality development? Why must we comprehensively accelerate and comprehensively turn toward high-quality development right now?
This is an objective requirement of changing situations, and even more so, an inevitable choice for the survival and continuation of the industry. On one hand, the driving force of industry development must be adjusted. The pulling effect of investment demand on the building materials industry has clearly weakened and will continue to do so for a long time; the development model that relies on the expansion of market scale is unsustainable, and a new value system centered on quality, efficiency, and benefits must be established. The inorganic non-metallic new materials industry is currently in an upward development cycle, and the non-metallic mineral industry has not yet received the attention it deserves, making it even more necessary to nurture and expand them.
On the other hand, it is an inevitable requirement of the industry's internal and external environments. The policy side has already formed a rigid constraint mechanism against high-carbon development paths, and the market side is reshaping market rules marked by green consumption; green transformation directly determines the survival and development of industry enterprises. Artificial intelligence empowering industry development causes the upper limit of competitiveness to constantly rise. The industry ecosystem is undergoing reconstruction.
Meanwhile, the deep adjustment of downstream construction demand, along with the accelerated upgrading of industrial consumption and emerging industries, is driving the reconstruction of the building materials industry's industrial positioning. The international layout, supply chain extension, and deep integration between industries of the building materials industry also require that the industry must accelerate its improvement of quality and upgrading.
High-quality development is no longer a question of "whether the industry should do it or wants to do it," but an inevitable result jointly determined by external requirements and its own survival and development.
In fact, over these years, the industry has already—consciously or unconsciously—begun to shift from passive to active pursuit of high-quality development.
Based on evaluations using the high-quality development indicator system, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the high-quality development of the building materials industry progressed continuously and accelerated steadily, with the composite score rising from 43.32 in 2020 to 64.00 in 2025, an increase of 20.68. Among these, innovation-driven development, green transformation, and open interconnectivity reached an 80% contribution rate to industry development, becoming the main drivers and key factors of the industry's development transformation.
According to the indicator system and in comparison with the six dimensions, it proves that it is precisely high-quality development that has become the root cause for why the industry can still achieve significant results and perform better than expected when facing various challenges.
Since 2022, the market demand of the building materials industry has experienced a cliff-like drop, and the cumulative operating income and total profits of building materials industries above designated size decreased by 34.6% and 72.9% respectively. But at the same time, the core competitiveness of the industry has also significantly strengthened, and the internal driving force for development is continuously accumulating.
First, the industrial structure adjustment has accelerated, and the driving force for development is continuously strengthening. The entire industrial chain has accelerated its upgrading, and the proportion of the processing and manufacturing industry has broken through 66%, becoming the main body of the industry. The entire industry is accelerating its transformation from a raw materials industry to a finished products industry. The proportion of the output value of inorganic non-metallic new materials and non-metallic minerals reached 24.7%, an increase of 11.7 percentage points compared to 2020.
Second, scientific and technological innovation has accelerated significantly, and innovation-driven development is continuously reinforced. It is estimated that in 2025, the intensity of investment in scientific and technological research and development (R&D) will reach 1.5%, higher than the overall level of the raw materials industry, among which, the cumulative R&D investment in inorganic non-metallic new materials exceeded 160.0 billion yuan. A batch of "world-first and globally leading" technologies continuously emerge. Technology creates the future; the proportion of sales revenue from new products in the building materials industry increased substantially from 12.2% to 21.4%.
Third, digital and intelligent transformation has continuously progressed, and operational effectiveness and efficiency are continuously optimized. The digital control rate of key processes in the building materials industry has reached 70%, an increase of 16.2 percentage points compared to 2020. The digital and intelligent level of the industry is continuously improving, AI large models have begun practical application, and the building materials industry is welcoming the intelligent era.
Fourth, the standard system is continuously reinforced, and the supply security is significantly enhanced. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the number of national standards, industry standards, and CBMF standards in the building materials industry grew from 2,475 in 2021 to 3,188 in 2025, and a batch of pioneering standards such as product quality traceability and advanced materials landed and were implemented one after another. The international conversion rate of building materials standards rose from 87.0% in 2021 to 95.4% in 2025, and the number of international standards whose formulation was led by China grew from 28 to 45.
Fifth, the low-carbon effect is significantly enhanced, and green transformation is gradually becoming the mainstream. The total volume of carbon emissions and emission intensity have achieved a continuous "dual decline," and the building materials industry has started the "carbon neutrality" era. The energy efficiency, environmental protection, and process equipment levels of major building materials products have reached international advanced levels, the scale of green building materials products broke through 250.0 billion yuan, and low-carbon productivity provides strong driving force for the development of the building materials industry.
Sixth, the sharing mechanism is becoming more complete day by day, and the concept of value is continuously elevated. The entire industry attaches greater importance to workers' sense of gain, and the proportion of employee salaries to the operating income of the building materials industry remains stable with a slight increase. More enterprises pay greater attention to fulfilling social responsibilities, deeply integrating economic benefits with social and environmental benefits, and the value boundaries of industry development are continuously expanding.
Seventh, international and domestic development is coordinated, and a global vision is taking shape. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the import and export volume of building materials reached an annual average of 75.0 billion US dollars, an increase of over 50%. In 2025, the proportion of high-value-added commodity exports rose to 31.8%, an increase of 9 percentage points compared to 2020. The proportion of overseas income of domestic listed building materials companies rose from 8.5% in 2020 to 16.5% in 2025, and the globalization of the building materials industry is accelerating.
Practice has proved that we must adhere to high-quality development. The situation requires that high-quality development must be accelerated. Specifically, it will be achieved through the "six transformations."
First is the transformation of industrial structure. It is necessary to achieve capacity reduction and quality improvement for traditional building materials industries, and volume expansion and value appreciation for inorganic non-metallic new materials and non-metallic mineral industries. By 2030, the scale proportion of the inorganic non-metallic new materials industry will reach 35%, and the scale proportion of the non-metallic mineral industry will reach 20%, forming three major engines characterized by balanced development, reasonable structures, and joint support for industry development. It is necessary to realize the expansion of the industry's positioning from being dominated by traditional building materials to the full field of non-metallic materials, and build a complete full-chain product system from raw materials to materials, and from parts to products, enhancing the value of the entire industrial chain.
Second is the transformation of industrial models. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the creation action of "Six-Zero" factories will be comprehensively carried out, nurturing and building more than 100 "Six-Zero" demonstration factories to form demonstration effects, drive the green transformation of the entire industry, and reshape the ecology of high-quality industrial development.
Third is the transformation of the scientific and technological innovation system. We will continuously increase the intensity of investment in scientific and technological research and development, strengthen innovation coalitions characterized by efficient synergy among industry, academia, research, and application, as well as close cooperation between upstream and downstream sectors, improve the conversion rate and industrialization level of scientific and technological achievements, and continuously cultivate and develop new quality productive forces of the industry.
Fourth is the transformation of artificial intelligence. We will accelerate the pace of digital and intelligent empowerment, speed up the implementation of "Artificial Intelligence + Building Materials," promote the development and application of industry AI large models, cultivate and establish an intelligent ecosystem system, and comprehensively improve the operational efficiency of the entire process.
Fifth is the transformation of market space. Basing on the domestic market and deeply cultivating overseas markets, with the domestic market as the traction, we will improve international resource allocation capabilities, deeply participate in global industrial division of labor and cooperation, and construct a brand-new all-round international win-win cooperation model integrating international trade, overseas real industries, engineering services, and full-industrial-chain synergy, well-telling the new stories of China's building materials industry.
Sixth is the transformation of industry value. We will pay greater attention to being "people-oriented," continuously improve the value distribution mechanism, and enhance employees' sense of gain; we will promote industries and enterprises to deeply integrate into the domestic economic and social circulation system as well as the international industrial circulation, continuously elevate social value, and promote the harmonious unity of economic benefits, social benefits, and environmental benefits.
The release of the "Report on High-Quality Development of China's Building Materials Industry" by the China Building Materials Federation is not only a declaration of the building materials industry's comprehensive transition toward high-quality development centered on quality, efficiency, and benefits in the next stage, but also a new starting point for the entire industry to change its mindset and reconstruct its industrial system and development models.
The China Building Materials Federation will work together with industry colleagues to fully advance the development transformation of the building materials industry during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, and jointly open up a new situation of high-quality development for the industry.
Editor: Zhang Hanwen
Reviewer: Shen Yulu, Li Yuemei
