On May 28, 2026, the 2026 Seventh Waterproof Industry Conference (528 Conference) hosted by the China Building Waterproof Association was grandly held at the Platinum Hanjue Hotel in Nanjing.
Hu Xibao, President of the China Building Waterproofing Association, took the lead in giving a keynote speech on “Analysis and Prospects of the Operation Situation of the Building Waterproofing Industry”.
Hu Xibao’s speech is not only an annual report, but also an “industry diagnosis.”
He “brings data to the field” and deeply “feels the pulse” of the industry.
Industrial economics points out that when the downstream demand structure undergoes irreversible changes, “demand-side shocks” will expose “systemic excess on the supply side.”
Hu Xibao’s report states at the beginning that “real estate demand is improving at the margin, infrastructure investment is strongly supported, raw material costs are under pressure, and industry involution is intensifying.” This means that total demand has not collapsed, but the demand mix has undergone structural shifts, while the supply-side capacity allocation is still operating in the old coordinate system. There has been a structural excess in which “the total volume seems sufficient, but the structure is seriously unbalanced.”
He used four quadrants to clearly present the true situation of the industry: two upward lines (real estate marginal recovery, infrastructure support) indicate that “demand is still there, but has changed”; a high-voltage line (raw material costs) reminds that “profit margins are not so easy to come back”; and a red line (involution) warns that “fighting among peers is more dangerous than the cycle itself.”
This kind of diagnostic opening reflects leadership. Only by not being afraid to explain the problem thoroughly can you be qualified to explain the way out.
Through his speech, we can see his insights into the shift of industry growth drivers.
The industry is shifting from scale expansion to high-quality transformation, and the growth momentum is accelerating from housing construction to infrastructure, urban renewal, renovation, rural housing and overseas markets.
This means that the incremental waterproofing market in the era of large-scale real estate development has passed its peak, and the industry can no longer rely on “building more and more houses” to support production capacity.
“Involution” is a game of the existing market, and we need to “increment”, that is, to cultivate new models, new business formats, and new spaces.
Hu Xibao gave new coordinates: infrastructure is the foundation for certainty, such as high-speed rail, water conservancy, underground pipe corridors, and transportation networks; urban renewal and repair are the gold mines for existing “new business forms”, including the construction of “good houses”, renovation of old communities, and the need for leakage control of 200 million old residences; rural housing is a sinking market that has been underestimated for a long time; overseas markets are the “second growth curve” of leading companies, especially infrastructure along the “Belt and Road” initiative.
This judgment has shifted the industry’s attention from “grabbing housing construction orders” to “redefining its own business.” Waterproofing must be upgraded to a safety guarantee system for the entire construction process, the entire value chain, and the entire life cycle. This is the prerequisite for the industry to break through.
In terms of response strategies, Hu Xibao proposed five dimensions: cost control, internally no longer rely on piling up production capacity, fighting for low prices, and suppressing suppliers; market transformation, the external sales system has shifted from “following projects” to “following scenarios”; compliance operations, gray areas such as environmental protection, safety, taxation, bidding, and bidding are getting narrower; technological innovation, such as photovoltaic roofs, green building materials, low-carbon formulas, digital intelligent production lines; risk prevention and control, focusing on accounts receivable, overcapacity, blind mergers and acquisitions, etc.
These five points indicate that in the next stage of competition in the industry, the key is who can withstand it and avoid making fatal mistakes.
Hu Xibao also called on the entire industry to say goodbye to vicious competition and stick to the bottom line of quality.
The root cause of vicious competition is that overcapacity, homogeneous products and short-term performance pressure make price wars the only sales tool.
To break the situation, associations need to promote standards improvement and institutional correction.
He publicly and clearly played this card at the industry conference, which was a declaration of position and responsible for the safety of member companies and downstream construction.
Looking back at the theme of the conference “Overcoming Difficulties, Shaping a New Situation, and Moving to the Future”, Hu Xibao’s speech corresponded to it.
Overcoming the current difficulties is reflected in not avoiding cost pressures, involution dilemmas and real estate ebbs; shaping a new situation and directing the industry’s attention to new battlefields; looking to the future, focusing on green, digital intelligence, compliance and quality, these are the real moats that can cross the cycle.
His speech provided a clear narrative framework for the confused traditional manufacturing industry, elevated the industry from a “cyclical fluctuation narrative” to a “structural transformation narrative” and anchored it on the national strategic track.
