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 supply of sand and gravel market, maintain overall price stability, and promote the healthy and orderly development of the industry, with the approval of the State Council, on March 25, the National Development and Reform Commission and other 15 departments and units jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Healthy and Orderly Development of the Sand and Gravel Industry".

The "Guiding Opinions" adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, follow the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, firmly establish and resolutely practice the new development concept, give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, better play the role of the government, and effectively implement the main responsibility of local governments. Adhere to the principle of building first and then breaking, accelerate the "opening the front door" and resolutely "blocking the back door". Comprehensive measures and multiple measures are taken to accelerate the construction of a regional supply and demand balance, reasonable price, green and environmentally friendly, and excellent sand and gravel industry system, providing strong support for infrastructure investment and construction and stable economic operation.

The "Guiding Opinions" clearly put forward a series of measures and opinions around promoting the scientific use of mechanism sand and gravel, river and lake sand, sea sand and alternative sand sources. First, promote the high-quality development of the mechanism sand and gravel industry. Including vigorously developing and promoting the application of machine-made sand and gravel, optimizing the layout of machine-made sand and gravel development, accelerating the formation of high-quality machine-made sand and gravel production capacity, and reducing transportation costs. Second, strengthen the comprehensive remediation and utilization of river sand mining. Including strengthening the comprehensive management of illegal sand mining, rationally developing and utilizing river sand and gravel resources, increasing the utilization of river channel dredging sand, and exploring and promoting the exploitation and utilization of silt sand in the Three Gorges Reservoir area. Third, gradually and orderly promote the exploitation and utilization of sea sand. Including rationally exploiting sea sand resources, establishing and improving a long-term mechanism for sea sand exploitation management; strictly regulating the use of sea sand, and strictly implementing the standards for the use of sea sand. Fourth, actively promote the alternative utilization of sand sources. Including supporting the comprehensive utilization of waste rock tailings, encouraging the use of solid waste resources to manufacture recycled sand and gravel, promoting the coordinated utilization of sand and gravel excavated for engineering construction, and actively promoting steel structure prefabricated buildings.

The "Guiding Opinions" emphasize that it is necessary to further consolidate the main responsibilities of local governments, establish and improve the working mechanism, pay close attention to the market situation of sand and gravel, and coordinate the promotion of production, supply guarantee, price stability, and strong supervision to ensure the needs of engineering construction and people's livelihood. At present, we must ensure the basic stability of the supply and price of the sand and gravel market under the premise of scientifically doing a good job in the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, combined with the orderly resumption of work and production of engineering projects.

Answering reporters' questions

Recently, with the approval of the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with 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, the State Administration for Market Regulation and other 15 departments and units, 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 the "Guiding Opinions"?

Answer: Sand and gravel are basic and indispensable building materials in engineering construction. Construction sand is divided into two categories: natural sand and machine-made sand. Among them, natural sand includes river and lake sand, land sand, and sea sand, and machine-made sand is sand and gravel made by mechanical crushing. For a long time, sand and gravel have been mainly supplied by the regional market, with overall balance between supply and demand and basically stable prices. After years of large-scale mining, natural sand and gravel resources have gradually decreased. In recent years, the amount of sand coming from major rivers in China has dropped significantly. In addition, some places have insufficient understanding of the basic importance of sand and gravel, and the industry rectification work is simple and extensive. The relationship between "blocking the back door" and "opening the front door" has not been coordinated. The number of machine-made sand and gravel enterprises has decreased significantly, resulting in regional short-term supply and demand imbalances, and prices have risen sharply. Low-quality sand and gravel have entered the market, increasing infrastructure investment and major project construction costs, affecting the progress of engineering construction and bringing quality risks. It is urgent to take comprehensive measures to stabilize the supply and price of sand and gravel market and promote the healthy and orderly development of the industry.

At present, all regions and relevant departments are coordinating the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and economic and social development in accordance with the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council. With the improvement of the epidemic prevention and control situation, 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 issued to promptly deploy all localities to ensure the basic stability of the supply and price of the sand and gravel market, which is of great practical significance for promoting infrastructure investment and construction and the smooth operation of the economy.

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

Answer: The consumption of sand and gravel aggregates in my country is increasing year by year. In the past, natural sand and gravel were the main source, 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 demand for construction projects, machine-made sand and gravel gradually replaced natural sand and gravel to meet market demand. At present, machine-made sand and gravel account for about 70% of construction sand and gravel.

Machine-made 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 the characteristics of excellent technical equipment, large scale, short production cycle, single product composition, adjustable particle size and controllable quality. A number of domestic projects use machine-made sand and gravel as the main raw material.

In recent years, the production of machine-made sand and gravel 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" emphasizes that it is necessary to accelerate the implementation of the "Several Opinions on Promoting the High-quality Development of the Machine-made Sand and Gravel Industry", further strengthen the management and guidance of the machine-made sand and gravel industry, strengthen linkage in terms of planning layout, process equipment, product quality, pollution prevention and control, and comprehensive utilization production, and accelerate the transformation and upgrading of the machine-made sand and gravel industry to better meet the needs of construction sand.

03. Question: What specific measures does the Guiding Opinions put forward in terms of strengthening the connection between supply and demand of mechanism sand and gravel and ensuring regional supply?

Answer: At present, the hot spots of sand and gravel demand are mainly concentrated in the seven major blocks of the Pan-Yangtze River Delta Cluster, the Middle 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, accounting for 60% of China's sand and gravel market consumption.

The main responsibility for ensuring the supply of sand and gravel lies with the local people's government. All regions should strengthen linkage with other provinces while doing a good job in planning balance in their own regions. In terms of optimizing the development layout of mechanism sand and gravel, it is necessary to comprehensively consider the mineral resources, transportation and logistics of various regions according to the investment and construction needs of the "14th Five-Year Plan", scientifically plan, reasonably layout, and establish a reasonable domestic mechanism sand and gravel supply system, which not only guarantees supply, but also prevents "rushing in" from causing duplicate construction and overcapacity. It is necessary to reasonably increase the investment in mining rights, strengthen the guarantee of factors such as funds, land, and logistics, support a number of enterprises to become bigger and stronger through technological transformation, promote the construction of large-scale projects, form new high-quality production capacity as soon as possible, and improve the supply level. Strengthen the connection between resource-rich areas such as Guizhou, Jiangxi, and Guangxi and areas with high demand, and layout a number of large-scale machine-made sand and gravel production bases with a capacity of tens of millions of tons along the main transportation channels.

In terms of strengthening transportation guarantees, promote the "road to rail, road to water" transportation of sand and gravel over 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 dedicated railway lines. For machine-made sand and gravel enterprises with an annual transportation volume of more than 1.5 million tons, dedicated railway lines should be built in accordance with regulations to open up the last kilometer of connection between self-built railways and national railways.

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

A: According to the actual situation of river sand resources and river and lake management and protection, the "Guiding Opinions" proposed to adhere to the combination of dredging and blocking, blocking the back door and opening the front door, and vigorously promote the scientific, reasonable and orderly development and utilization of river sand resources while cracking down on illegal sand mining, and alleviate the contradiction between supply and demand in the sand and gravel market.

First, speed up the preparation of river sand mining planning. Urge and guide all river basin institutions and localities to speed up the preparation of river sand mining plans, and reasonably determine the exploitable areas, exploitable periods, and exploitable quantities on the premise of ensuring flood control, ecology, and navigation, so as to provide a scientific basis for reasonable development and utilization. Combined with the preparation of sand mining plans, urge and guide localities to clean up unreasonable prohibited mining areas and prohibited mining periods as soon as possible, adjust the unrealistic and unilateral expansion of prohibited mining areas, and correct the "one-size-fits-all" practice of implementing long-term year-round prohibition without legal basis.

Second, promote unified mining management. In order to solve the problems of "small, scattered, and chaotic" and difficult management in river sand mining, timely summarize and promote the good experience of some localities in exploring and implementing unified river sand mining management, encourage and support unified river sand mining management, strengthen on-site supervision, maintain mining order, and promote intensive and large-scale mining.

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

Fourth, standardize and optimize licensing management. In accordance with the State Council's "delegation, regulation and service" requirements, optimize the approval process of river sand mining licenses and improve work efficiency. For approved river dredging and river management projects, the excavated sand and gravel are allowed to be sold to the outside in accordance with laws and regulations in addition to the project's own use.

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

Answer: According to incomplete statistics, in the field of housing construction and municipal infrastructure projects, purified sea sand accounts for about 6% of the total sand used. 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, the chloride ion content of sea sand is high, and direct use will bring hidden dangers to the main structure of the construction project. It must be strictly purified to ensure that the chloride ion content meets the requirements of standard specifications before it can be used in construction projects. At present, the state and some localities have formulated and issued standards for the chloride ion content of sea sand and concrete, which must be strictly implemented.

The relevant departments will strengthen the supervision of ready-mixed concrete enterprises in accordance with the Guiding Opinions and relevant regulations, and urge them to strictly implement the systems of raw material purchase inspection, use and factory inspection, and prevent the use of sea sand without legal source proof and unqualified quality, to ensure that the quality of sea sand and concrete meets the use standard requirements. At the same time, we will increase the supervision and inspection of construction sites, urge construction and supervision units to strengthen the acceptance and inspection of ready-mixed concrete, and strictly prohibit the use of concrete with substandard chloride ion content, and strictly prohibit the use of sea sand in prestressed concrete, steel fiber concrete and reinforced concrete with special requirements, so as to effectively ensure the quality of the project.