[Average Monthly Operating Hours of Major Construction Machinery Products in September: 80.7 Hours]

Continued weakness in real estate and infrastructure investment has pushed the cement industry into a period of deep adjustment. The industry's loss-making share has now reached 60%, with a large number of small and medium-sized cement enterprises trapped in operating difficulties marked by price inversion, high inventory, and sluggish payment collection. According to incomplete statistics, more than 20 cement and grinding enterprises have entered bankruptcy-related proceedings this year, with debt risks among small and medium-sized players surfacing in a concentrated manner and spreading upstream along the industry chain.

As policy dividends continued to take effect and housing consumption demand kept being released, the real estate market sustained its recovery in September, with second-hand home transactions in key cities expanding and the September peak season delivering a strong performance. Data from the China Index Academy showed that in September, second-hand home market activity continued to fluctuate at highs, with 119,000 second-hand homes transacted across 20 key cities, up 7.4% YoY. In the first nine months of this year, 1.118 million second-hand homes were transacted in these 20 key cities, up 6.4% YoY. Among them, second-hand home markets in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai continued to see expanding transaction volumes. In September, Beijing and Shanghai recorded 16,000 and 24,000 second-hand home transactions, up 13.7% and 3.3% MoM, respectively. Notably, Shanghai's second-hand home transaction volume rose 17.2% YoY in September, marking seven consecutive months of YoY growth.

Market dynamics: Firmer domestic prices meet uneven export demand