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**The list of the 60 cement enterprises that are given priority support will be adjusted soon. At the \"2009 China International Cement Summit\" held on April 2, Kong Xiangzhong, secretary-general of the China Cement Association, told a reporter from China Securities Journal that not only will the list of cement enterprises that receive priority support change, but the industry policies related to cement will also be adjusted. Key supported enterprises will receive new investment. “Out of the total list of 60 companies, 16 have already been restructured with other large cement groups, and therefore will no longer be listed separately.” ”Kong Xiangzhong told reporters that due to the support policies in place, which impose limits on the total number of enterprises, the new list is likely to maintain a total of 60 enterprises; it is certain that new companies will join. However, he also noted that aside from companies that are no longer included in the new list due to restructuring reasons, it is possible to eliminate the existing supported enterprises as well. Reporters from China Securities Journal have learned indirectly that companies that have seen rapid growth over the past year, including Asia Cement and Sichuan Esheng Cement, are likely to be added to the list of large regional cement enterprises eligible for support. Regarding the elimination criteria, Kong Xiangzhong said that these are primarily based on a company’s growth potential; companies that have not shown significant improvement in their production capacity over the past year or so are likely to be excluded from the new list. On January 9, 2007, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Land and Resources, and the People’s Bank of China jointly identified 60 cement enterprises that would receive priority support, including 12 large-scale national cement enterprises and 48 large-scale regional cement enterprises. **It is committed to providing priority support to these enterprises in areas such as project approval, land authorization, and credit investment. It is said that the new list will be officially released in August. Raise the entry barriers for new projects. Meanwhile, the Cement Association is also drafting a new industrial policy draft. Kong Xiangzhong revealed that the revised industrial policy is expected to establish entry barriers for new projects. “At the provincial, prefectural, and county levels, **in an effort to boost investment, new production lines are being approved. We are very concerned that Gansu’s market, which has just started to improve, might revert to a situation where only a few dollars could be earned per ton of cement. ”Yang Hao, chairman of Qilian Mountain (600720), said that although the management remains highly optimistic about the Gansu market this year, given that the total production capacity of projects currently in operation, under construction, or ready to start construction in Gansu and Qinghai amounts to 35 million tons, the annual cement demand in these two regions will not exceed 30 million tons even in three years’ time. Yang Hao is worried that the Gansu region will see the recurrence of the “Zhejiang phenomenon”. Reporters from China Securities Journal have learned that the revised cement industry policy will require new projects to obtain approval from both the local development and reform commission as well as the economic and trade commission; in addition, industry opinions issued by relevant associations must be included in the application materials in order to avoid duplicate construction resulting from multiple approval processes ； In addition, the new industrial policies impose stricter requirements on the environmental standards, energy efficiency, and licensing procedures for new projects. Especially in areas where there is a high proportion of new dry-process production lines, the approval process for new projects will be even more rigorous. Furthermore, the revised industrial policy will also see changes in terms of phasing out outdated technologies. The Cement Association predicts that by the end of 2009, the proportion of new-process capacity in the country’s total cement production will be close to 70%, meaning that the goals set for the 11th Five-Year Plan will be achieved one year ahead of schedule. But this does not mean that the pace of phasing out outdated facilities in the cement industry will slow down. A reporter from China Securities Journal learned from insiders at the Ministry of Finance that **efforts are being made to increase the subsidies available for eliminating such outdated production capacity. From the perspective of the cement industry, this means that the incentive for vertical kilns to withdraw from the market will increase further. Since the revision of industrial policy requires a draft to be prepared by associations, followed by three rounds of discussions involving key enterprises, provincial authorities and industry associations, as well as industry experts, the revised cement industry policy is likely to be released not until July this year.