Building materials industry posts 57.5% profit surge

BEIJING - Profits of China's building materials industry rose 57.5 percent year-on-year to 214.6 billion yuan ($33.77 billion) in the first nine months of the year, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planner.

Of sub-categories, profits of the cement industry jumped 130 percent year-on-year to 74.7 billion yuan while the flat glass industry, a sector fraught with overcapacity and duplicated construction problems, fell 71.3 percent in profits to 1.57 billion yuan, the NDRC said on its website.

In the first ten months, cement output rose 18 percent year-on-year to 1.7 billion tonnes. Flat glass output reached 623.62 million weight boxes during the period, up 18 percent from a year earlier, the NDRC said.

Prices of both cement and flat glass continued to drop in October.

To curb the overcapacity and repeated construction in the flat glass sector, the NDRC said in a circular issued in October that it would take move nationwide to clear up projects for construction of flat glass production facilities.

According to the circular, the NDRC found lately that some areas and enterprises have launched flat glass production projects without permission, leading to oversupply and sharp price drop on the market, and putting the whole industry on the verge of loss making.