Original title: (Economic observation) China has laid out major projects in many places and strived to expand investment "to get off to a good start"
China news agency, Beijing, 5 January (Reporter Wang Enbo) At the beginning of 2023, many construction sites in China have been busy. With the layout of major projects in the first quarter and even the whole year being finalized one after another, China will make great efforts to expand effective investment.
January 3 is the first working day of this year. On this day alone, many provincial officials announced big moves. At the on-site promotion activities of major projects in the first quarter of 2023 in Sichuan Province held on the same day, 423 major projects were officially started, with a total investment of 748.37 billion yuan (RMB, the same below); The promotion meeting of investment and key projects in Anhui Province in the first quarter held on the same day revealed that there were 1017 projects started in the province in the first quarter, with a total investment of 706.91 billion yuan; Shanghai Jing ‘an, Xuhui, Jinshan and other districts also started a number of major projects on the same day.
Some places pay more attention to planning throughout the year. For example, Chongqing initially considers the investment of 400 billion yuan in major municipal projects in 2023, so as to drive investment of more than 1 trillion yuan; Henan has selected about 2,500 provincial key projects with an annual investment of 1.8 trillion yuan.
In the new year, major projects have been laid out in various places, reflecting that China is making continuous efforts to expand effective investment.
Investment is the main starting point for stable growth in the short term. Since last year, with the obvious decline in investment in real estate development, China officials have continuously increased steady investment and accelerated the construction of major projects, which has strongly supported the steady growth of investment in fixed assets.
According to the spokesman of China National Development and Reform Commission, the department actively promotes the implementation of investment policies. We will make every effort to promote the development of policy-oriented financial instruments to support the construction of major projects, as well as the upgrading and transformation of special refinancing and financial discount supporting equipment. By the end of November 2022, more than 2,700 projects supported by two batches of financial instruments totaling 739.9 billion yuan had all started construction; The annual investment of 640 billion yuan in the central budget has been completed, and the project operating rate has reached the highest level in the past five years.
In this context, in the first November of 2022, the completed investment of large projects with a planned total investment of 100 million yuan or more in China increased by 11.9% year-on-year, 6.6 percentage points higher than the total investment. In the same period, the planned total investment of newly started projects increased by 20.3% year-on-year, and the funds in place for investment projects (excluding real estate development investment) increased by 21.5%, which provided strong support for the sustained and steady growth of investment.
Looking forward to 2023, promoting major projects and expanding effective investment will still be an important starting point for China to promote the overall improvement of economic operation. Judging from the information recently released by the government, relevant parties will continue to strengthen the protection of funds and other factors.
From the perspective of funds, special bonds are an important means to promote the expansion of effective investment and stabilize the macro-economy. By the end of November in 2022, China had issued 4 trillion yuan of new local government special bonds to support the construction of nearly 30,000 key projects. Liu Kun, Minister of Finance of China, said recently that in 2023, special bond funds will be appropriately expanded to invest in areas and used as capital, and the physical workload and investment will continue to form a driving force to promote the overall improvement of economic operation.
Regarding the investment direction, Zhao Chenxin, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, revealed that China will increase investment in key areas and weak links. Focus on 102 major projects in the 14 th Five-Year Plan and make efforts to accelerate the construction of major projects. Appropriately advance infrastructure investment, systematically lay out new infrastructure, strengthen the construction of food security, energy security, industrial chain supply chain security and other fields, and strengthen support for major issues to protect people’s livelihood needs.
This can also be seen from the recent layout of major projects in various places. For example, a number of projects started in Shanghai cover smart equipment, new materials, life and health and other strategic emerging industries. The projects started in Anhui involve manufacturing, infrastructure, people’s livelihood projects and other industries, among which the investment in manufacturing projects accounts for 70.8% of the total investment. These projects mainly focus on strengthening the foundation, supplementing the shortcomings and increasing the kinetic energy, which is not only conducive to the current steady growth, but also focusing on the future.
"Taking investment as the connection point between short-term steady growth and long-term transfer mode, you can kill two birds with one stone if you do it well." Huang Yiping, vice president of Peking University National Development Research Institute, believes that expanding effective investment in 2023 is still the focus of China’s economic policy, especially in high-end manufacturing, digital economy, green development and other fields. Combining demand-side management with supply-side structural reform can not only achieve short-term stable growth, but also contribute to long-term economic transformation. (End)