6 issues of concern in the production of construction materials

Building materials are considered as the bridge of industry-construction. The production of building materials currently has some issues to be concerned about.

However, there were times when production exceeded demand, the import volume of some types of construction materials was still large, especially some basic materials such as iron, steel, tiles, furniture, and the real estate market was frozen for a long time, causing supply to exceed demand, so the consumption of construction materials decreased, causing the amount of products produced in the past few years to decrease. Specifically: fired bricks in 2011 decreased by 1.6%; rolled steel in 2011 decreased by 3.9%, in 2012 decreased by 5.5%; cement in 2012 decreased by 3.1%, ...

The second problem is that most businesses do not fully exploit their production capacity, and the capacity utilization rate is low. According to Dr. Tran Van Huynh, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Construction Materials, the capacity utilization rate of construction glass is only under 50%, unburned materials under 55%, ceramics under 70%, cement under 80%... While some construction material production facilities have not fully utilized their capacity, some newly established facilities not only face production difficulties, but are also heavily indebted due to construction investment capital...

The third problem is related to scale and technological equipment. Besides some large-scale factories with advanced technological equipment, most other construction material factories are small-scale, with outdated technology, consuming a lot of raw materials, consuming a lot of energy, polluting the environment, and having low efficiency and competitiveness with imported goods, while labor is cheaper and does not have to pay transportation costs from abroad...

The fourth issue is that environmental protection has not received special attention, not only in fuel consumption technology as above, but also in the slow use of unburnt construction materials to replace burnt bricks, burnt tiles... (up to 2012, over 19 billion burnt bricks were still produced; in 5 months of 2013, although it decreased by 2.9% compared to the same period, it still reached nearly 6.6 billion bricks; burnt tiles in 2012 still produced over 560 million bricks). The exploitation of sand (not only for domestic use but also for export), gravel, cobblestones... each year reaches over 60 million m3, but due to poor management, it has caused landslides in many areas.

The fifth issue is the planning issue. Construction materials is an industry that uses a lot of natural resources, energy, and the mining and production processes can easily have a negative impact on the environment, so planning is a very important issue. The general planning of the whole country is not detailed enough; planning in some localities either does not exist or exists but overlaps with the national planning; there is planning but it has not been developed according to the plan.

Sixth issue, in the first 5 months of 2013, the production of construction materials in general increased at a higher rate than the whole industry (such as cement increased by 7.4%, rolled steel increased by 17.4%, steel bars, angle steel increased by 7.4%...). This may be due to the fact that construction material manufacturers increased production to seize the opportunity when the construction industry and real estate market showed more positive signs. This is also good news for businesses and workers working in the above fields. However, attention should be paid to restructuring this industry from planning, technology, efficiency and competitiveness to avoid imported goods taking over the market share.

According to commercial newspaper - PH