Nghe An: Unburnt brick enterprises face difficulties

(Baonghean) - The Government has assigned ministries, departments and branches of the provinces to resolutely implement policies to eliminate manual brick kilns and gradually replace them with unburnt construction materials (UCM). However, in Nghe An, during the implementation process, a number of difficulties have been encountered, in which the difficulty of consumer habits has always been a difficult problem.

Stopped operations due to unsold products

In recent years, our province has produced many unburnt brick models with reasonable prices, but they are still difficult to sell, causing many unburnt brick manufacturing enterprises to struggle, even go bankrupt. Typically, the Construction Materials Joint Stock Company - NTT Son Thanh Commune, Yen Thanh, since 2007 has invested over 50 billion VND to build and produce unburnt bricks with a capacity of 100 million bricks/year.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Thi - Director of NTT Construction Materials Joint Stock Company said: Compared to fired clay bricks, unfired bricks have outstanding advantages, such as low greenhouse gas emissions; use less fuel; use waste as raw materials; light weight, soundproof and heatproof; speed up construction progress, reduce costs by 6 - 8%. In 2011, the company produced the first "batch" of 1 million bricks, sold to some households building houses, however, due to difficult output, the company has stopped production since 2011.

In the same situation, Lung Lo 2.1 Investment - Development Joint Stock Company (in Vinh Tan - Vinh City) since 2008 has boldly invested 6 billion VND to produce unburnt bricks using German foaming technology, and has become one of the pioneering enterprises in producing super light concrete bricks using new technology.

NTT Construction Materials Joint Stock Company invests in a non-burnt brick production line in Son Thanh commune (Yen Thanh).

The products are mainly used for high-rise apartment buildings invested by the unit. Due to the difficulty in finding a market, the production line has been "stillborn" and stopped production since May 2012. Besides, Tan Hoang An unburnt brick company, Quynh Thien ward, Hoang Mai town, has a capacity of 15 million bricks/year since 2011 and has been in operation since then. This company has produced 6 million bricks and currently has more than 30,000 unsold bricks.

It is known that in 2011, the whole province had over 100 establishments, mainly small-scale private households, with the main products being cement bricks (dashboards). Of these, there were nearly 10 small and medium-sized factories producing aggregate bricks (Bloook bricks), foam concrete bricks, unburnt bricks made from soil using polymerization technology... the production of unburnt bricks in the whole province was estimated at about 135 million pieces. However, up to this point, there were 4 factories that stopped operating or were operating at a low level.

According to Mr. Hoang Trong Kim - Director of the Department of Construction, Decision No. 567/QD-TTg dated April 28, 2010 approving the Program for developing unburnt construction materials until 2020 came at a time when the economy was in recession, the construction materials market in general was shrinking, including for burnt clay bricks.

Need a synchronous solution

The current solution is that, in terms of policy mechanisms, there should be specific, long-term incentives for capital (especially for the need for investment capital to develop the production of non-fired construction materials). Step by step, perfecting scientific and technical solutions in the conditions of our province, building, announcing and issuing full standards related to the design, construction, acceptance... of projects using non-fired materials.

Strengthen propaganda work so that government managers, especially urban authorities, consultants, investors, construction enterprises and all people involved in construction need to be informed of the advantages and incentives for the production and use of burnt clay construction materials, to gradually change the habit of using burnt clay bricks that still exists in the construction process.

To completely eliminate facilities producing fired clay bricks using manual and improved manual kilns, localities need to seriously implement Circular 09/2012/TT-BXD dated November 28, 2012 regulating the use of unburned construction materials in construction works.

A facility producing unburnt bricks and mats.

Circular 09 specifically stipulates: Construction works of 9 floors or more, regardless of capital source, must use at least 30% by 2015 and at least 50% after 2015 of lightweight unburnt construction materials in the total construction materials (calculated by volume of construction block); For construction works invested by State capital according to current regulations, it is mandatory to use unburnt construction materials according to the roadmap: In urban areas of type 3 or higher, 100% of unburnt materials must be used from the effective date of this Circular.

And the remaining areas must use at least 50% of unburnt construction materials from the effective date of this Circular until the end of 2015, and after 2015 must use 100%.

Van Truong