Nine Recommendations for Building a New Landscape of High-Quality Development for my country's Sand and Aggregate Industry

22/05/2026

I. Advancing the Construction of an Industrialized System for the Sand and Aggregate Sector

1. Sand and aggregate processing enterprises must establish and refine their laboratory facilities and quality control systems. They are required to conduct inspections of all outgoing products, implement a product certification system, and progressively minimize fluctuations in product quality.

2. Establish a comprehensive, practical, and advanced system of standards and specifications to ensure leadership in—and the promotion of—high-quality development within the industry. This system aims to supply the concrete industry with a greater volume of high-quality aggregates, thereby supporting brand-building initiatives within the concrete sector and enhancing the overall quality of construction projects.

3. Formulate clear-cut design guidelines, principles, and typical models for sand and aggregate production lines, with the aim of reducing—and ultimately eliminating—common flaws and recurring issues currently prevalent in design practices. The objective is to ensure that key parameters of sand and aggregate products are controllable and adjustable, thereby enabling the production lines to operate in a stable, reliable, and energy-efficient manner.

4. Drive continuous innovation in equipment and technology, focusing on core technical processes involved in sand and aggregate production—specifically crushing and shaping, gradation adjustment, quality monitoring, dust collection, wastewater treatment, and material storage and transportation.

5. Enhance the professional knowledge and overall competence of industry personnel by implementing systematic professional training programs and organizing skills competitions.

6. Elevate the level of corporate management within the sand and aggregate sector, moving away from current extensive and rudimentary management models toward an orderly and refined management approach.

7. Gradually establish an industrial structure dominated by large and medium-sized enterprises. This entails continuously raising the standards for equipment and process technology, green production practices, ecological restoration, product quality, and workforce capabilities, thereby effectively marginalizing and eliminating small, disorderly, and substandard processing enterprises.

II. Establishing and Refining the Scientific and Technological System for Sand and Aggregate Materials to Ensure Technology-Led Development

The sand and aggregate industry constitutes a vast scientific and technological system characterized by the intersection of multiple disciplines. It is imperative to clearly define the physical, chemical, and processing properties of sand and aggregate materials. Furthermore, it is essential to organically integrate and interconnect various fields—including mineralogy and mining, mechanical engineering, process design, inorganic non-metallic materials, transportation, civil engineering, ecological environment, forestry, agriculture, and biology—in order to establish a comprehensive scientific and technological framework for sand and aggregates. Throughout every stage of the value chain, technological innovation must be encouraged to underpin and facilitate integrated development.

Efforts must be made to progressively establish a complete industrial system for the sector, encompassing research and development, design, production, quality control, and standardization. To foster technological innovation within the industry, the development of big data platforms for the sand and aggregate sector should be encouraged. This initiative aims to drive the establishment of modern, medium-to-large-scale enterprises characterized by the highly integrated, automated, and large-scale operation of quarrying, processing, storage, and transportation activities—all while prioritizing eco-friendliness, energy conservation, emission reduction, and waste recycling. In the coming years, technological advancements within the sand and aggregate industry are projected to outpace those in other building materials sectors significantly; consequently, industrial transformation, upgrading, and innovation-driven development are not merely desirable—they are imperative.

III. Establish a Scientific and Rational Layout to Curb Excess Capacity in Specific Regions

Currently, certain regions in my country have witnessed an excessive allocation of mining rights. In some county-level jurisdictions, for instance, over a dozen mining rights have been released. When conducting government tenders for mining rights, authorities must take into account the broader landscape of sand and aggregate supply and demand. Exorbitantly priced mining rights not only significantly inflate the production costs of sand and aggregates but also inflict excessive damage upon the ecological environment—creating immense pressure for restoration—while simultaneously leading to resource waste and excess capacity. In response to this situation, the industry should establish guiding principles and upper limits for the regional distribution of sand and aggregate production capacity. It should issue warnings and provide notifications to both government bodies and industry stakeholders regarding regions where capacity allocation has become excessive, thereby mitigating the risk of blind, industry-wide capacity expansion and ensuring a scientific and rational layout.

IV. Raising Industry Entry Barriers and Focusing on Establishing Mainstream Supply Channels for Sand and Aggregate

Currently, the primary threat posed by sand and aggregate supplies to construction projects stems from a chaotic and unregulated supply chain; the industry currently lacks a supply channel capable of guaranteeing both product quality and environmentally friendly production and transportation. It is recommended that major cities adopt the "Beijing Model," wherein housing and urban-rural development authorities take the lead in systematically establishing a qualified and traceable supply chain for construction-grade sand and aggregate. This approach—characterized by the principle of "establishing the new before dismantling the old"—involves developing large-scale, modern sand and aggregate supply bases situated around urban centers. Under this framework, sand and aggregate enterprises must undergo third-party evaluations regarding their adherence to green production and transportation standards; upon successful evaluation, the housing and urban-rural development commission designates them as "Green Sand and Aggregate Supply Bases," thereby granting them official market entry qualifications. Once these primary supply channels are sufficient to meet the demands of the construction market, enterprises lacking the requisite entry qualifications are to be phased out, thereby reshaping the industry into a high-quality, green supply chain for sand and aggregate. For small and medium-sized cities as well as county-level regions, and in accordance with local market demand, the government may either take the lead or encourage capable private enterprises to undergo mergers and restructuring to form medium-to-large-scale sand and aggregate processing entities. Through strict regulation and management, authorities should crack down on and eliminate small, disorderly, and substandard enterprises, ultimately establishing a sand and aggregate supply chain characterized by green practices, high quality, reasonable pricing, and orderly market competition.

V. Vigorously Advance the Development of Green Mines

The sand and aggregate industry must earnestly implement and put into practice the philosophy of the "Two Mountains Theory," continuously formulating and enriching new concepts, models, technologies, and methodologies for green mines (or green production lines). It must establish a cohort of national-level green mines for sand and aggregates to serve as exemplars, thereby guiding and leading the entire industry toward green development. In the construction of green mines, the industry must consistently apply the "Sand and Aggregate 4.0+" development model proposed by the China Sand and Aggregate Association, fostering a multitude of model enterprises across the sector that exemplify "green production and ecological restoration."

VI. Enhancing Large-Scale, High-Quality Production Capacity: Bringing Premium Aggregates to Concrete Enterprises

The critical significance and impact of sand and gravel quality on modern concrete and overall engineering quality are now widely recognized. Two guiding documents—jointly issued by multiple ministries in 2019 and 2020—have both emphasized the urgent need to establish large-scale, high-quality production capacity as soon as possible, thereby enabling the mass production and supply of premium aggregates. It is imperative to cultivate the mindset that "product quality constitutes the fundamental benchmark of high-quality development." Furthermore, we must rectify and eliminate the practice of stone fines—masquerading as manufactured sand—infiltrating the sand and gravel aggregate supply chain. Instead, we must ensure that compliant and premium-quality aggregates enter concrete enterprises in substantial quantities, becoming the dominant component of their supply. Our objective is to achieve large-scale production capacity for premium aggregates within three to five years, thereby fundamentally reshaping public perceptions of manufactured sand, bolstering infrastructure development, safeguarding concrete quality, and elevating overall engineering standards.

VII. Vigorously Advance the Intelligentization of the Sand and Aggregate Manufacturing Industry

Promoting industrial modernization, intensification, standardization, and ecological sustainability—through systematic research into digital intelligent manufacturing and the theories and technologies of high-quality aggregate processing—constitutes a vital pathway and means for ensuring the high-quality development of the sand and aggregate industry. The formulation and establishment of key theoretical frameworks and complete sets of technologies for the intelligent manufacturing of high-quality sand and aggregate require support from a wide range of research outcomes. These encompass various dimensions—including theory, equipment, processes, and product testing and evaluation—all of which are integral to core manufacturing technologies within the sector; consequently, dedicated scientific research and innovation in these specific areas are imperative. This represents one of the key strategic directions for the high-quality development of the industry over the coming years.

Building a modern enterprise for sand, gravel aggregates, and crushing equipment. Intelligent manufacturing is reshaping the future and is poised to spark a revolution in the manufacturing sector; it entails not merely the intelligent automation of individual machines, but rather the comprehensive digitalization and intelligence of the entire product lifecycle—spanning design, production, sales, management, and service.

VIII. Future Models for the Sand and Aggregate Industry Chain

Concrete is primarily composed of sand and aggregate, cement, and admixtures. Of these components, sand and aggregate account for over 70% of the composition, while cement clinker and admixtures constitute a relatively small proportion. Future competition within the industry will not merely revolve around products or distribution channels; rather, it will be a competition centered on the effective integration of resources into a cohesive system. This system will be anchored by sand and aggregate production bases—forming an industry chain dominated by sand, aggregate, and concrete—and will involve the rational utilization of low-adsorption stone fines (generated during the production of manufactured sand and aggregate) as supplementary cementitious materials, thereby simultaneously reducing transportation costs. The ideal future model for the sand and aggregate industry will be an integrated industrial structure encompassing sand and aggregate production bases, grinding stations, concrete mixing plants, solid waste resource utilization facilities, and logistics and transportation networks.

IX. Strengthening International Exchange and Cooperation to Offer "Chinese Solutions" for the Global Sand and Aggregate Industry

In recent years, my country's sand and aggregate industry has actively engaged in international exchange and cooperation. It maintains close ties with the Global Aggregates Information Network (GAIN) and has garnered significant attention and high recognition from international counterparts. Moving forward—as the industry continues to evolve and in alignment with the "Belt and Road Initiative"—the development pathways and models pioneered by my country's sand and aggregate sector will serve as valuable references and exemplars for the global sand and aggregate community. 

Concurrently, my country's sand and aggregate industry is becoming increasingly integrated into global academic and industrial organizations within the sector. Through active exchange and interaction, the industry seeks to draw upon the strengths of others to foster innovative development. Furthermore, efforts will be made to appropriately increase the importation of natural river sand into the southeastern coastal regions, thereby alleviating the supply pressure for sand and aggregates required for infrastructure construction.

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