Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The building materials market is forecast to be robustthis year, with the demand fuelled by the increase in infrastructure developmentinvestment and the recovery of the property market, according to the Ministryof Construction.

There were increases in demand for building materials this year, Pham Van Bac,Director of the ministry’s Department of Building Materials said.

Repairing infrastructure damaged by the floods in the central region andlandslides in mountainous areas would require a large volume of constructionmaterials. In addition, the real estate market was expected to recover, whichwould lead to increases in real estate investment, pushing up demand forconstruction materials.

With such good demand, the construction materials market would be very robustthis year, he said.

Bac said the supply industry needed to prioritise projects producing newmaterial, of large-scale and advanced technology as well as projects whichuse waste from other sectors.

According to VNDirect Securities Company, the building materials industry wouldbenefit greatly from the trend of increasing investment in development thisyear.

One of the notable infrastructure projects was the North-South Expressway.

VNDirect estimated that 40 percent of the public investment for road and 11component projects would be disbursed in 2021. Around 23.7 trillion VND or60 percent of the construction costs would be allocated to building materials.It was estimated that these projects would need asphalt worth around 5.9trillion VND, steel 6.4 trillion VND and cement 3.8 trillion VND this year.

To complete these projects by 2023, expenses for asphalt, steel and cement wouldbe 20.8 trillion VND, 14.8 trillion VND and 8.9 trillion VND, respectively.

Vietnam could also benefit from China’s plan of investing in infrastructuredevelopment, which would push up China’s demand for imported steel and cement,according to VNDirect which also forecast the trend would continue to mid-2021at least.

According to S&P Global Platts, China approved 14 airport projects wortharound 15.3 billion USD last year, together with 22 railway projects.

Vietnam’s export of cement and steel to China saw significant increases inrecent months.

Statistics showed that cement export to China rose by 102 percent in volume inthe first 11 months of last year while steel export to China jumped by 1,414percent in the January-October period.

In August, the Prime Minister approved the strategy of developing constructionmaterials in 2021-30 period which encouraged investment in projects which usedadvanced technology in production, energy saving and environmentally friendbuildings./.