Sand and gravel are basic and indispensable building materials in engineering construction. The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the healthy and orderly development of the sand and gravel industry. In order to stabilize the sand and gravel market supply, maintain overall stable prices, and promote the healthy and orderly development of the industry, with the approval of the State Council, on March 25, fifteen departments and units including the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "On Promoting the Healthy and Orderly Development of the Sand and Gravel Industry" Guidance of

The "Guiding Opinions" adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and in accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, firmly establish and resolutely implement the new development concept, give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, and better utilize the government We must effectively implement the main responsibilities of local governments, adhere to the principle of establishing first and then breaking, accelerate "opening the front door" and resolutely "blocking the back door", implement comprehensive policies and take multiple measures at the same time, and accelerate the construction of a balanced regional supply and demand, reasonable price, green and environmentally friendly, high-quality sand The stone industry system provides strong support for infrastructure investment and construction and stable economic operation.

The "Guiding Opinions" clearly put forward a series of measures and opinions on promoting the scientific utilization of machine-made sand and gravel, river and lake sand, sea sand and alternative sand sources. The first is to promote the high-quality development of the machine-made sand and gravel industry. This includes vigorously developing and promoting the application of machine-made sand and gravel, optimizing the development layout of machine-made sand and gravel, accelerating the formation of high-quality production capacity of machine-made sand and gravel, and reducing transportation costs. The second is to strengthen the comprehensive regulation and utilization of river sand mining. This includes strengthening the comprehensive management of illegal sand mining, rationally developing and utilizing river sand and gravel resources, increasing the utilization of dredged sand in river channels, and exploring and promoting the mining and utilization of silted sand in the Three Gorges Reservoir area and other areas. The third is to gradually and orderly promote the mining and utilization of sea sand. This includes rationally exploiting sea sand resources, establishing and improving a long-term mechanism for sea sand mining management, strictly regulating the use of sea sand, and strictly implementing sea sand use standards. The fourth is to actively promote the alternative utilization of sand sources. This includes supporting the comprehensive utilization of waste rock and tailings, encouraging the use of solid waste resources to produce recycled sand and gravel, promoting the overall utilization of sand and gravel excavated in engineering construction, and actively promoting steel structure prefabricated buildings.

The "Guiding Opinions" emphasize that it is necessary to further consolidate the responsibilities of local entities, establish and improve working mechanisms, pay close attention to the sand and gravel market situation, and coordinate efforts to promote production, ensure supply, stabilize prices, and strengthen supervision to ensure project construction and people's livelihood needs. At present, it is necessary to ensure the basic stability of the sand and gravel market supply and price on the premise of scientific prevention and control of the new coronavirus epidemic, combined with the orderly resumption of work and production progress of engineering projects.

A reporter asked

Recently, with the consent of the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with fifteen departments and units 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, jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Healthy and Orderly Development of the Sand and Gravel Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guiding Opinions").

01. Question: Why is it necessary to formulate and issue "Guiding Opinions"?

Answer: Sand and gravel are basic and indispensable building materials in engineering construction. Sand for construction is divided into two categories: natural sand and manufactured sand. Among them, natural sand includes river and lake sand, land sand, and sea sand. Machine-made sand is sand and gravel made by mechanical crushing. For a long time, sand and gravel have been mainly supplied from the regional market, with overall supply and demand balanced and prices basically stable. After years of large-scale mining, natural sand and gravel resources have gradually decreased. In recent years, the amount of sand coming from major domestic rivers has dropped significantly. In addition, some places have insufficient understanding of the basic importance of sand and gravel. The industry rectification work is simple and extensive, and there is no overall plan to "block the back door." Due to the relationship with "opening the front door", the number of machine-made sand and gravel enterprises has significantly reduced, resulting in short-term regional short-term supply shortage, sharp price rise, low-quality sand and gravel entering the market, increasing infrastructure investment and major project construction costs, while affecting the progress of project construction and bringing There are quality risks in the future, and it is urgent to take comprehensive measures to stabilize the supply and price of the sand and gravel market and promote the healthy and orderly development of the industry.

Currently, relevant departments in various regions are making overall plans to promote the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic and economic and social development in accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council. As the epidemic prevention and control situation improves, engineering projects are gradually resuming work and production in an orderly manner. With the approval of the State Council, the "Guidance Opinions" have been formulated and issued to promptly deploy various localities to effectively ensure the basic stability of sand and gravel market supply and prices, which is important for promoting infrastructure investment and construction and The smooth operation of the economy is of great practical significance.

02. Question: Why should we vigorously develop and promote the application of machine-made sand and gravel?

Answer: my country's sand and gravel aggregate consumption is growing year by year. In the past, natural sand and gravel were mainly used, mainly from mountains and rivers. With the depletion of natural sand and gravel resources, the improvement of ecological protection requirements and the continuous increase in the demand for construction projects, machine-made sand and gravel have gradually replaced natural sand and gravel to make up for the market demand. At present, machine-made sand and gravel It already accounts for about 70% of the sand and gravel used in construction.

Mechanized sand and gravel mainly refers to sand and gravel particles made from primary mineral resources through mechanical crushing, screening, shaping and other processes. It has excellent technical equipment, large scale, short production cycle, single product composition, adjustable particle size, and variable quality. control and other characteristics. A number of domestic projects use machine-made sand and gravel as the main raw material.

In recent years, machine-made sand and gravel production has rapidly transformed into large-scale, intensive, mechanized and automated factories. The industry has made great progress, but it also faces problems such as weak supply capacity and low level of green development. The "Guiding Opinions" emphasize the need to accelerate the implementation of the "Several Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Mechanized Sand and Gravel Industry" and further strengthen the management and guidance of the machine-made sand and gravel industry, from planning and layout, process equipment, product quality, pollution prevention and comprehensive Utilize production and other aspects to strengthen linkage, accelerate the transformation and upgrading of the machine-made sand and gravel industry, and better meet the needs of construction sand.

03. Question: What specific measures does the "Guiding Opinions" propose to strengthen the connection between supply and demand of machine-made sand and gravel and ensure regional supply?

Answer: The current sand and gravel demand hotspots are mainly concentrated in the seven major sectors of the Pan-Yangtze River Delta Cluster, the Yangtze River Midstream Cluster, the Chengdu-Chongqing Cluster, the Central Plains Cluster, the Pearl River Delta Cluster, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Cluster, and the Guanzhong Cluster, accounting for China's sand and gravel market consumption. 60%.

The main responsibility for ensuring the supply of sand and gravel lies with local people's governments. Each region should balance its regional planning while strengthening linkage with other provinces. In terms of optimizing the development and layout of machine-made sand and gravel, according to the investment and construction needs of the "14th Five-Year Plan", we must comprehensively consider factors such as mineral resources, transportation and logistics in various places, scientifically plan, rationally distribute, and establish a domestic reasonable mechanism-made sand and gravel supply system to ensure supply. , and prevent “rushing in” from causing duplication of construction and overcapacity. It is necessary to rationally increase the investment in mining rights, strengthen the guarantee of funds, land, logistics and other factors, support a number of enterprises to become bigger and stronger through technological transformation, promote the construction of large projects, form new high-quality production capacity as soon as possible, and improve the supply level. Strengthen the connection between resource-rich areas and areas with large demand such as Guizhou, Jiangxi, and Guangxi, and lay out a number of large-scale machine-made sand and gravel production bases with a capacity of 10 million tons along the main transportation corridors.

In terms of strengthening transportation guarantees, we will promote the "road-to-rail and road-to-water" transportation of sand and gravel in medium and long distances, reduce road transportation volume, increase railway transportation volume, improve the construction of water transportation network and port collection and distribution system, and strengthen the effective connection between different transportation modes. . Promote the construction of special railway lines. Machine-made sand and gravel enterprises with an annual transportation volume of more than 1.5 million tons should build special railway lines in accordance with regulations to open up the last kilometer of the connection between self-built railways and national railways.

04. Question: River sand and gravel are an important source to ensure sand and gravel supply. In order to rationally develop and utilize river sand and gravel resources, what next steps will be taken?

Answer: Based on the actual situation of river sand resources and river and lake management and protection, the "Guiding Opinions" proposes to adhere to the combination of dredging and blocking, blocking the back door and opening the front door. While cracking down on illegal sand mining, we should vigorously promote scientific, reasonable and orderly development. Utilize river sand resources to alleviate the contradiction between supply and demand in the sand and gravel market.

The first is to speed up the preparation of river sand mining planning. Supervise and guide all river basin agencies and localities to speed up the preparation of river sand mining plans, and rationally determine the recoverable area, recoverable period, and recoverable volume on the premise of ensuring flood control, ecology, and navigation, so as to provide scientific basis for rational development and utilization. In conjunction with the preparation of sand mining plans, we urge and guide all localities to clear up unreasonable mining prohibited areas and periods as soon as possible, adjust unrealistic and unilaterally expanded prohibited mining areas, and correct the "one size fits all" approach that has no legal basis for long-term, year-round mining bans.

The second is to implement unified mining management. In order to solve the problems of "small, scattered, chaotic" and difficult management in river sand mining, we should promptly summarize and promote the good experience in exploring and implementing unified river sand mining management in some places, encourage and support the unified mining management of river sand, and strengthen on-site supervision. Maintain mining order and promote intensive and large-scale mining.

The third is to increase the utilization of dredged sand from rivers and waterways. Summarize the pilot experience of comprehensive utilization of dredged sand in the Yangtze River waterway, study and issue guidance on the comprehensive utilization of dredged sand, and standardize and guide the utilization of dredged sand. Accelerate the pilot work on comprehensive utilization of silted sand in the Three Gorges Reservoir area to increase the supply of sand and gravel resources. Promote the combination of river sand mining and river channel management to achieve a win-win situation for river channel management and river sand development and utilization.

The fourth is to standardize and optimize license management. In accordance with the requirements of the State Council for “delegating power, delegating power, delegating power, delegating power, regulating power and optimizing services”, the work process for river sand mining license approval will be optimized to improve work efficiency. For approved river dredging and river improvement projects, in addition to the project's own use of the excavated sand and gravel, the excess is allowed to be sold to external parties in accordance with laws and regulations.

05. Question: Please introduce the use of sea sand in construction projects. How to strictly regulate the use of sea sand?

Answer: According to incomplete statistics, in the fields of housing construction and municipal infrastructure projects, purified sea sand accounts for about 6% of the total sand consumption. In recent times, due to geographical and cost factors, purified sea sand has become an important source of construction sand in some coastal areas. However, sea sand has a high chloride ion content, and direct use will cause hidden dangers to the main structure of construction projects. It must undergo strict purification treatment to ensure that the chloride ion content meets the requirements of standard specifications before it can be used in construction projects. At present, the country and some localities have formulated and promulgated standards regarding the chloride ion content of sea sand and concrete, which must be strictly implemented.

Relevant departments will strengthen the supervision of ready-mixed concrete enterprises in accordance with the "Guiding Opinions" and relevant regulations, urge ready-mixed concrete enterprises to strictly enforce raw material purchase inspection, use and factory inspection, and prevent the use of raw materials without legal source certificates and substandard quality. Sea sand, ensure that the quality of sea sand and concrete meets the requirements of usage standards. At the same time, the supervision and inspection of the construction site should be intensified, and construction, supervision and other units should be urged to strengthen the on-site acceptance and testing of ready-mixed concrete. It is strictly prohibited to use concrete with substandard chloride ion content, and it is strictly prohibited to use sea sand in prestressed concrete and steel fiber concrete. And in reinforced concrete with special requirements, we can effectively ensure the quality of the project.