Recently, eight major construction central enterprises have successively released the new contract signing in the first half of 2025.

Overall, in the first half of this year, the eight major construction central enterprises signed a total of approximately 7.87 trillion yuan in new orders, a year-on-year decrease of 0.19%. Among them, China Construction (.SH) continued to rank first in the industry with a newly signed contract amount of over 2.5 trillion yuan, while China Railway (.SH) and China Railway (.SH) ranked second and third with a new contract amount of over 1.1 trillion yuan and 1.06 trillion yuan respectively.

Zhang Xinyuan, the research director of Kefangde think tank, said in an interview with a reporter from the China Times that the number of newly signed contracts of the eight major construction central enterprises in the first half of this year fell slightly by 0.19% year-on-year, basically in line with industry expectations. The overall demand of the construction industry currently shows new characteristics such as the slowdown in the growth rate of traditional infrastructure, the accelerated layout of emerging businesses, and the obvious expansion of overseas markets. Market competition is intensifying, and enterprises pay more attention to the optimization of business structure and transformation and upgrading.

China's construction continues to lead

China Construction's operating status briefing for the first half of the year showed that the total amount of newly signed contracts exceeded 2.5 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.9%, and the overall order situation remained stable. In terms of construction business, the newly signed contract amount was 232.65 billion yuan, an increase of 1.7% year-on-year. Among them, the infrastructure business was 823.7 billion yuan, an increase of 10.0% year-on-year, maintaining rapid growth. By region, domestic business was RMB 2211.7 billion, an increase of 2.2% year-on-year. In terms of physical quantity indicators, the construction area of ​​house construction is 10,000 square meters; the newly started area is 129.49 million square meters; and the completed area is 81.85 million square meters.

Dongguan Securities said that as the global leader in the construction industry, China Construction has experienced cyclical downward trends in the real estate and construction industries in recent years, and its performance has been stable compared with its peers. New contracts signed during the year maintain stable growth, especially the rapid growth of new infrastructure, which will strongly support future performance. The sales scale of real estate business is leading the industry, and as a central enterprise, it continues to operate stably, and is expected to further increase its market share in the face of the market.

China Railway Corporation and China Railway Construction Corporation ranked second and third with results of over 1.1 trillion yuan and 1.06 trillion yuan respectively.

China Railway Corporation signed new contracts in the first half of the year of 1108.69 billion yuan, an increase of 2.8% year-on-year. In terms of business types, the growth of asset management business is the most obvious, with a year-on-year increase of 425%, and the newly signed contract amount was 128.69 billion yuan, which is due to its active layout in diversified business expansion; the newly signed contract amount of engineering construction business reached 739.24 billion yuan, but a slight decrease of 5.3% year-on-year, indicating that the traditional engineering construction field is facing certain pressure; the newly signed contract amount of characteristic real estate business was 18.35 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 38.5%, reflecting the good development trend in the real estate segment.

The new contract amount signed by China Railway Construction in the first half of the year was 1.06 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.04%. The amount of newly signed contracts in China was 942.08 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.37%, and domestic business faced certain challenges; the amount of newly signed contracts in China was 114.0944 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 57.43%, and the rapid growth of overseas business became the highlight. According to industry statistics, the newly signed contract amount of the engineering contracting industry was 788.4259 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 7.27%; the newly signed contract amount of the green and environmental protection industry was 107.3821 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.07%; the newly signed contract amount of the emerging industries was 7.8579 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44.45%. The growth of green and emerging industries showed the company's positive results in business structure adjustment.

"The scale advantages of leading enterprises are further consolidated. China Construction, China Railway Corporation and China Railway Construction Corporation continue to lead with their strong resource integration capabilities and brand influence." In Zhang Xinyuan's view, this pattern has prompted the transformation of industry competition toward high-quality and high-tech content. Small and medium-sized enterprises need to make breakthroughs through differentiated competition or market segmentation, and the industry concentration is expected to continue to increase.

Performance is differentiated

In the environment where traditional businesses are under pressure, overall expansion of overseas businesses, and accelerated layout of emerging businesses, the operating performance of the eight major construction central enterprises is showing a differentiated trend. Judging from the growth rate of newly signed contracts, except for China Railway Construction and China Metallurgical Construction (.SH), the other six central enterprises have achieved positive growth, with China Power Construction (.SH) and China Energy Construction (.SH) ranking in the top two, with year-on-year growth of 5.83% and 4.98% respectively.

The newly signed contract amounts of MCC and China Chemical (.SH) are relatively small. The newly signed contract amount of MCC China was 548.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 19.1%, and the newly signed domestic contract amount was 490.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 22.7%. The systemic recession of domestic business is the main cause of overall negative growth, mainly affected by the decline in metallurgy and housing construction businesses. China Chemical's newly signed contract amount is 206 billion yuan. Although it is small in scale, it has a stable development and maintains its own business promotion pace in the fields of energy and chemical industry.

China Power Construction, the fastest-growing new contracts, had a total of 686.699 billion yuan, an increase of 5.83% year-on-year. The new contracts signed in energy and electricity reached 431.4 billion yuan, exceeding half of the total amount, mainly in hydropower and wind power businesses, with an increase of more than 65%. The business model of "hydropower new energy" has achieved remarkable results.

Galaxy Securities predicts that infrastructure will continue to play an active role in expanding effective investment, stabilizing the economic market, and promoting effective quality improvement and reasonable quantitative growth in the economy in the second half of this year. The combination of real estate policies has laid the general direction of destocking in the real estate industry. First-tier cities responded quickly, lowered the down payment ratio and mortgage interest rates, stabilized the pace of real estate, which is expected to promote the improvement of supply and demand structure, accelerate the financing of real estate companies, and boost confidence in the real estate market. The real estate industry chain is expected to accelerate recovery.

Overseas market performance is eye-catching

In terms of overseas contract amount, the total number of newly signed overseas contracts of the eight major construction central enterprises reached 994.46 billion yuan, an increase of 16.33% from 854.84 billion yuan in the same period last year, showing a steady expansion overall.

Specifically, although China Construction still ranks first with a scale of 114.8 billion yuan, it has declined compared with the same period last year. The remaining seven companies have maintained growth. China Railway Construction and China Railway have grown at 57.43% and 51.6% respectively, and China MCC has grown at 32.5%, indicating the strong expansion momentum of central enterprises in overseas markets and also reflecting the continued improvement of the overall competitiveness of my country's construction companies in the global infrastructure market.

A relevant person in charge of China Railway Corporation told the China Times reporter that in terms of overseas business, as the national team and main force for the high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road", in the first half of 2025, under the complex and changing international situation, the company focused on its main responsibilities and business, insisted on deepening its overseas business, and won bids for the Phase II design and construction project of the Tanzania-Burundi-Congo (Denmark) transnational standard gauge electrification railway (Tanzania to Burundi section), the China-Kyrgyz-Ukraine Railway (intra-section of the Kyrgyz Republic), and other major overseas projects. The newly signed contract amount in the fields of overseas railways, housing construction municipal, design consulting, equipment manufacturing, etc. have all shown a year-on-year growth trend.

Zhang Xinyuan said that the main driving forces for overseas business expansion include the in-depth promotion of the "Belt and Road" initiative, the growth of global infrastructure demand, and the continuous release of the technological and cost advantages of my country's construction companies. Enterprises effectively respond to challenges such as policy and regulatory differences, geopolitical risks and exchange rate fluctuations through localized cooperation, compliance management system construction, diversified market layout, and financial tools hedging exchange rate risks.

Industry insiders pointed out that the international layout of the construction industry has accelerated this year. First, in terms of the market expansion of the "Belt and Road" policy, Southeast Asia's high-speed rail, Middle East smart ports, and Africa's new energy power stations have become the three major growth poles to go overseas. A certain enterprise won the bid in the subway project of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam through technical standards output and localized operation, promoting the internationalization of China's construction brand; Second, in terms of regional cooperation mechanism innovation, infrastructure projects of RCEP member countries enjoy tariff reduction and cross-border financing convenience, and a certain enterprise optimizes investment portfolio allocation and reduces geopolitical risks by establishing a "Southeast Asia Central and Eastern Europe Latin America" ​​triangular support system to optimize investment portfolio allocation and reduce geopolitical risks; Third, in terms of the construction of the ESG compliance system, in response to international rules such as the EU carbon border tax, leading enterprises reduce export costs through "localized production green electricity procurement"; a central enterprise established an ESG compliance database in Sri Lanka port project to cover environmental protection regulations and avoid investment risks.