China has issued an emergency decree ordering officials to halt the development of new cement and plate glass capacity, as it struggles to overcome entrenched local government resistance to halting wasteful investment in glutted industries. The statement, which was carried on the Ministry of Industry & Information Technology's (MIIT) website: www.miit.gov.cn, ordered industrial regulatory departments around the country not to approve any new projects for the steel or plate glass sectors "for any reason." China's State Council, the country's cabinet, made a similar decree in October 2013, in which it mandated a freeze on cement and glass among other industries, but analysts have said that governments and government-connected firms have still tried to evade the freezes and even build new projects. "Total industrial capacity in cement and plate glass is still growing, but the industry wide sales rate is in decline and accounts receivable are increasing," the MIIT statement said. Cement output grew 3.6% in the first half of 2014, while plate glass capacity grew 4.7%, the statement said. "This trend, if not checked, will seriously interfere with efforts to reduce serious excess capacity." Critics of Chinese industrial policy have said that because Chinese officials' career advancement is still largely tied to their ability to produce economic growth, they are still strongly incentivised to push through GDP-producing investment projects whether there is consumer end-demand for the products they produce or not. In addition, such projects can serve as channels for corruption and political patronage. This has made China's economy increasingly credit-intensive, loading bad debts on domestic banks that have lent to such projects, and has also been a major aggravator of China's air and water pollution problems.
