Industry News

1、 Market demand continues to expand

Infrastructure and urbanization drive: Kyrgyzstan is accelerating urbanization and modernization of infrastructure, leading to a surge in demand for housing construction (such as Kazakhstan's plan to build 200000 new housing units by 2025), which has driven a 15% year-on-year increase in the import volume of building materials such as light steel keel that are suitable for the extreme climate in Central Asia (-40 ℃ to 50 ℃ temperature difference). The self-sufficiency rate of building materials in the country is low, with about 70% relying on imports. Chinese products dominate the mainstream market due to their cost-effectiveness advantage.

High dependence on imports: Kyrgyzstan has a significant dependence on imported building materials, with strong demand for new building materials such as light steel joists, similar to its 65% dependence on Chinese supply for PVC doors and windows. From January to October 2024, the total import value of Jilin reached 10.31 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 1.8%, with building materials being an important imported category.

2、 China's supply chain dominates the market

Market share leadership: Referring to the overall trend in Central Asia (40% of Kazakhstan's light steel keel imports come from China), Chinese manufacturers dominate the Kyrgyzstan market with mature technology and production capacity advantages, and their products have upgraded fire and sound insulation performance as their core competitiveness.

Logistics cost optimization: The China Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Railway (to be opened in 2026) significantly reduces freight transportation time (saving 7-8 days) and mileage, and significantly improves cross-border logistics efficiency; The Central Asia Steel Plant and other Chinese funded projects in Osh State further strengthen the stability of the local supply chain.

3、 Price and Cost Structure

The price is transmitted by the cost of steel: the price of light steel keel is closely linked to the basic steel. By 2025, global steel prices will decrease by over 24% year-on-year, which may reduce production costs. However, the selling price in the Jilin market needs to be combined with import tariffs (such as an average import tax rate of about 12% for building materials) and additional costs such as cross-border logistics.

Local production bottleneck: Kyrgyzstan's steel industry is weak, with an annual output of only about 1.5 million tons of crude steel and no independent steelmaking capacity. Steel consumption relies entirely on imports, which restricts the localized production of light steel keel.

4、 Policy and Investment Opportunities

Preferential policies for foreign investment: In 2025, the new Enterprise Code will strengthen legal protection and tax incentives, attracting Chinese enterprises to invest and establish factories in the field of building materials; The government focuses on supporting environmentally friendly building materials and provides tax exemptions for lightweight and energy-saving materials.

Deepening regional cooperation: the "the Belt and Road" initiative promotes China Kyrgyzstan infrastructure cooperation, such as the implementation of projects such as the Central Asia Steel Plant in Osh Prefecture, creating long-term opportunities for building materials trade.

5、 Competitive Trends and Technological Upgrades

Environmental protection and intelligent transformation: The market demand for energy-saving and environmentally friendly building materials is increasing, and light steel keel needs to optimize its cold resistance and fire resistance performance to meet GOST certification standards; Intelligent production equipment, such as automated cutting machinery, has become a key competitive advantage for manufacturers.

The rise of e-commerce channels: Kyrgyzstan's e-commerce scale is growing rapidly (reaching 360 million US dollars in 2024), and 26 Kyrgyz companies have settled on the Alibaba platform, providing new channels for cross-border sales of light steel keel