China's fixed asset investment in the cement sector dropped by 2.63 percent year on year to 23.2 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion) for the first eight months of this year, said a government official on Tuesday.

Zhang Li, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told an international cement conference, which kicked off here Tuesday, that China's rapid investment the in the cement industry has been curbed and the industry's structure has been improved thanks to a series of government macro control policies.

China produced a total of 762 million tons of cement from January to August, a rise of 21 percent on the same period of last year, according to latest NDRC data.

NDRC estimates that China's demand for cement will hit 1.2 billion tons in 2010 and 1.3 billion tons in 2020.

China's cement output has been the highest in the world over the past two decades. In 2005, the country's cement production stood at 1.06 billion tons, 48 percent of the world's total.

Over the next five years, China aims to strengthen macro control over the sector, upgrade market access standards, phase out outdated capacity and support major cement producers so that they can compete with foreign counterparts on the international market, said Zhang.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2006)