Mechanism sand is the key to the healthy development of the sand and gravel industry.

Sand and gravel are fundamental and indispensable construction materials in engineering projects. The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the healthy and orderly development of the sand-and-gravel industry. To stabilize the supply of sand and gravel in the market, maintain overall price stability, and promote the industry's healthy and sustainable growth, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with 14 other departments and units, jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Healthy and Orderly Development of the Sand-and-Gravel Industry" on March 25, with the approval of the State Council.

The "Guiding Opinions" adhere to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, following the decisions and arrangements made by the Party Central Committee and the State Council. They firmly uphold and actively implement the new development philosophy, fully leveraging the decisive role of the market in resource allocation while enhancing the government's role. The document emphasizes earnestly fulfilling the primary responsibilities of local governments, adhering to the principle of establishing new frameworks before dismantling old ones. It calls for simultaneously accelerating efforts to "open the front door" while resolutely "blocking the back door," adopting comprehensive and multi-faceted strategies to swiftly establish a regional sand and gravel industry system characterized by balanced supply and demand, reasonable pricing, environmental sustainability, and high quality—thereby providing robust support for infrastructure investment, construction, and stable economic operations.

The "Guiding Opinions" outline a series of measures aimed at promoting the scientific utilization of manufactured sand and gravel, river and lake sand, sea sand, and alternative sand sources. First, it calls for driving high-quality development of the manufactured sand and gravel industry—specifically by vigorously advancing and popularizing the use of manufactured sand and gravel, optimizing the layout of its production and mining operations, accelerating the establishment of high-quality manufacturing capacity, and reducing transportation costs. Second, it emphasizes strengthening comprehensive management and sustainable utilization of river sand resources—by intensifying efforts to tackle illegal sand mining, rationally developing and utilizing river sand and gravel resources, boosting the use of dredged materials from river channels, and exploring innovative approaches to harness sediment accumulated in areas like the Three Gorges Reservoir. Third, it advocates for the gradual and orderly promotion of sea sand mining and utilization—by responsibly exploiting sea sand resources and establishing long-term, robust management mechanisms; meanwhile, it stresses strict regulation of sea sand usage and rigorous enforcement of relevant standards. Finally, it encourages active promotion of alternative sand sources—such as supporting the comprehensive utilization of waste rock and tailings, encouraging the production of recycled sand and gravel from solid waste, fostering integrated management of excavated sand and gravel during construction projects, and actively advancing the adoption of steel-structure prefabricated buildings.

The "Guiding Opinions" emphasize the need to further strengthen local governments' principal responsibilities, establish and improve working mechanisms, closely monitor the sand and gravel market situation, and coordinate efforts to boost production, ensure supply, stabilize prices, and enhance regulatory oversight—thereby safeguarding both construction projects and people's daily livelihoods. Currently, while maintaining rigorous COVID-19 prevention and control measures based on scientific principles, it is essential to align with the orderly resumption of work and production in engineering projects, effectively guaranteeing stable supply and prices in the sand and gravel market.

Answering reporters' questions

Recently, with the approval of the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission, jointly with 15 other departments and agencies—including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Water Resources, and the State Administration for Market Regulation—issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Healthy and Orderly Development of the Sand and Gravel Industry" (hereafter referred to as the "Guiding Opinions").

01. Question: Why was the "Guiding Opinions" formulated and issued?

Answer: Sand and gravel are fundamental and indispensable construction materials in engineering projects. Construction sand is broadly categorized into two main types: natural sand and manufactured sand. Natural sand includes river, lake, land-based, and sea sand, while manufactured sand is produced by mechanically crushing rocks into fine particles. For a long time, sand and gravel have primarily been supplied by regional markets, maintaining a generally balanced supply-demand dynamic and relatively stable prices. However, after years of large-scale extraction, natural sand and gravel resources have gradually dwindled. In recent years, the volume of sediment flowing into China's major rivers has significantly declined. Moreover, in some areas, there remains an insufficient awareness of the critical importance of sand and gravel as foundational materials. Coupled with overly simplistic and fragmented industry整顿 efforts that failed to properly balance addressing illegal activities ("closing backdoors") with fostering legitimate growth ("opening front doors"), the number of manufactured sand and gravel enterprises has sharply decreased. This has led to temporary regional shortages, causing prices to soar dramatically. Consequently, low-quality sand and gravel have begun entering the market, driving up infrastructure investment costs and escalating project expenses for major construction initiatives. At the same time, these issues are jeopardizing project timelines and introducing potential quality risks. It is therefore urgently necessary to implement comprehensive measures to stabilize both the supply and pricing of sand and gravel, ensuring the healthy and orderly development of the industry.

Currently, various regions and relevant departments are steadily advancing COVID-19 prevention and control measures alongside efforts to boost economic and social development, all in line with the decisions and plans set forth by the Party Central Committee and the State Council. As the epidemic situation continues to improve, engineering projects are gradually resuming work and production in an orderly manner. With the approval of the State Council, the "Guiding Opinions" have been formulated and released, providing timely guidance to local authorities on effectively ensuring stable supply and prices in the sand and gravel market. This initiative is of immense practical significance in fostering infrastructure investment, supporting economic stability, and promoting sustained growth.

02. Question: Why is it important to vigorously develop and promote the use of mechanism-made sand and gravel?

Answer: China's consumption of sand and gravel aggregates has been steadily increasing year by year. In the past, natural sand and gravel were the primary source, mainly derived from mountains, rivers, and streams. However, as natural sand and gravel resources dwindle, ecological protection requirements rise, and construction project demands continue to grow, manufactured sand and gravel have gradually replaced their natural counterparts to meet market needs. Today, manufactured sand and gravel already account for approximately 70% of the sand and gravel used in construction.

Mechanically produced sand and gravel primarily refers to sand and stone particles made from primary mineral resources through processes such as mechanical crushing, screening, and shaping. These materials boast excellent technical equipment, large-scale operations, short production cycles, uniform product composition, adjustable particle sizes, and controllable quality. A growing number of domestic projects are already using mechanically produced sand and gravel as their main raw material.

In recent years, the production of manufactured sand and gravel has rapidly shifted toward large-scale, intensive, mechanized, and automated factories, marking significant progress in the industry. However, the sector also faces challenges such as weak supply capacity and a low level of green development. The "Guiding Opinions" emphasize the need to accelerate the implementation of the "Several Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Development of the Manufactured Sand and Gravel Industry," further strengthening management and guidance for this sector. This will involve enhanced coordination across areas such as planning and layout, process equipment, product quality, pollution control, and comprehensive resource utilization, thereby speeding up the transformation and upgrading of the manufactured sand and gravel industry and better meeting the demand for construction-grade sand.

03. Question: What specific measures does the "Guiding Opinions" propose to strengthen the coordination between mechanism sand and gravel supply and demand, and to ensure regional supply?

Answer: Currently, the key regions driving demand for sand and gravel are primarily concentrated in seven major clusters—namely, the Pan-Yangtze River Delta Cluster, the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River Cluster, the Chengdu-Chongqing Cluster, the Central Plains Cluster, the Pearl River Delta Cluster, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Cluster, and the Guanzhong Cluster—which together account for 60% of China’s sand and gravel market consumption.

The primary responsibility for ensuring the supply of sand and gravel rests with local people's governments. Each region should not only strike a balance in its own regional planning but also strengthen coordination and collaboration with other provinces. In optimizing the layout for mechanism-sand-and-gravel development, it’s essential to align with the investment and construction needs outlined in the 14th Five-Year Plan, while carefully considering local mineral resources, transportation networks, and logistics infrastructure. This requires scientific planning and rational site selection to establish a domestically efficient supply system for mechanism sand and gravel—ensuring adequate availability while preventing "stampedes" that could lead to redundant projects and overcapacity. Moreover, we must appropriately increase the allocation of mining rights, bolstering support in critical areas such as funding, land, and logistics. By leveraging technological upgrades and other measures, we can help a number of enterprises grow stronger and larger, facilitating the advancement of major project construction. This will enable us to rapidly develop new, high-quality production capacity and elevate overall supply levels. Additionally, close integration should be fostered between resource-rich regions like Guizhou, Jiangxi, and Guangxi—and areas with robust demand—by strategically positioning a series of large-scale, multi-million-ton mechanism-sand-and-gravel production bases along key transportation corridors.

In strengthening transportation support, we will promote the shift of sand and gravel transportation from road to rail and from road to water for medium- and long-distance hauls, thereby reducing road transport volume while boosting rail freight. We will also enhance the waterway network and improve port collection-and-distribution systems, ensuring seamless connectivity among various modes of transport. Furthermore, we will advance the construction of dedicated railway lines—specifically requiring mechanized sand and gravel enterprises with annual shipments exceeding 1.5 million tons to build such lines as mandated, thus connecting their privately constructed railways directly to the national rail network for the final mile.

04. Question: Riverbed sand and gravel are an important source for ensuring the supply of these materials. To rationally develop and utilize riverbed sand and gravel resources, what measures will be taken next?

Answer: Based on the actual conditions of river sand resources and the management and protection of rivers and lakes, the "Guiding Opinions" emphasize the need to simultaneously address both the "back door" and "front door"—that is, while cracking down on illegal sand mining, we must also vigorously promote the scientific, rational, and orderly development and utilization of river sand resources, thereby easing the supply-demand imbalance in the sand and gravel market.

First, accelerate the preparation of river channel sand-mining plans. Urge and guide basin authorities and local areas to expedite the development of these plans, ensuring that flood control, ecological protection, and navigational safety are prioritized. On this basis, rationally determine the permissible mining zones, periods, and quantities, providing a scientific foundation for the sustainable and efficient utilization of river resources. In conjunction with the preparation of sand-mining plans, closely supervise and guide localities to promptly eliminate unreasonable no-mining zones and periods, adjust overly broad or impractical no-mining areas that have been arbitrarily expanded, and rectify the "one-size-fits-all" approach of imposing year-round, indefinite bans on sand extraction without proper legal justification.

Second, we will implement unified mining management. To address the issues of "small-scale, scattered, and chaotic" operations—and the associated challenges in management—within river sand extraction, we will promptly summarize and promote effective practices from local areas that have successfully adopted unified river sand mining management. We encourage and support the establishment of such systems, strengthen on-site supervision, maintain orderly mining operations, and advance more intensive, large-scale extraction methods.

Third, we will intensify efforts to utilize dredged sand from rivers and waterways. By summarizing the pilot experiences of comprehensive utilization of dredged sand in the Yangtze River waterways, we will develop and issue guiding opinions on the integrated use of dredged sand, thereby standardizing and directing related practices. Additionally, we will accelerate the pilot project for the comprehensive utilization of sediment accumulated in the Three Gorges Reservoir area, helping to boost the supply of sand and gravel resources. Furthermore, we will promote the integration of river sand mining with river management initiatives, creating a win-win situation where effective river restoration is achieved alongside sustainable development of river sand resources.

Fourth, standardize and optimize licensing management. In accordance with the State Council’s “delegation, regulation, and service” requirements, streamline the approval process for river sand mining permits and enhance administrative efficiency. For approved river dredging, desilting, and river improvement projects, any excavated sand and gravel—not just that used internally—may, after meeting project needs, be legally and properly sold to external parties as surplus.

05. Question: Could you please introduce the use of sea sand in construction projects, and how can its usage be strictly regulated?

Answer: According to incomplete statistics, in the fields of housing construction and municipal infrastructure projects, purified sea sand accounts for approximately 6% of the total sand usage. Recently, due to geographical and cost factors, purified sea sand has become a crucial source of construction sand in some coastal regions. However, sea sand typically contains high levels of chloride ions, which can pose hidden risks to the structural integrity of building projects if used directly. Therefore, it must undergo rigorous purification processes to ensure that the chloride ion content meets the standards and specifications before being safely applied in construction. Currently, national and several local authorities have already established and implemented stringent standards governing the chloride ion content in both sea sand and concrete, which must be strictly enforced.

Relevant authorities will strengthen supervision over pre-mixed concrete enterprises in accordance with the "Guiding Opinions" and related regulatory requirements. They will urge these companies to strictly enforce systems covering raw material inspection upon arrival, proper usage practices, and factory testing procedures. This includes eliminating the use of sea sand lacking valid sourcing documentation or failing to meet quality standards, thereby ensuring that both sea sand and concrete products comply with applicable usage criteria. At the same time, oversight and inspection at construction sites will be intensified, compelling construction and supervision entities to enhance their acceptance and testing protocols for incoming pre-mixed concrete. Units are explicitly prohibited from using concrete whose chloride ion content fails to meet specified standards. Additionally, sea sand is strictly forbidden in prestressed concrete, steel fiber-reinforced concrete, and reinforced concrete projects with special requirements, ensuring robust quality control throughout the construction process.