China will step up efforts in the construction of major projects and new infrastructure as part of its overall drive to foster long-term sustained, innovation-driven and high-quality development. Experts said the government has already introduced a series of stimulus policies for infrastructure spending to shore up growth, and its accelerated push to construct key projects will help boost domestic demand, expand effective investment and stabilize the overall economy. They said China’s economy will continue to pick up in the third and fourth quarters of the year with existing policy support and forceful infrastructure spending. The country will support the construction of major projects, with a key focus on implementing 102 key projects mapped out during the period of the 14th Five Year Plan (2021-25) and projects in the five-year plan for transportation development, said Zheng Jian, Director of the Department of Infrastructure Development at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
Song Wen, Deputy Director of the Planning Department at the National Energy Administration (NEA), said the NDRC and the NEA are accelerating the push for the implementation and construction of key projects mapped out in the 14th Five Year Plan. Investment in key energy fields is expected to grow by more than 20% compared with the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-20). “We expect infrastructure investment will remain strong and do the heavy lifting to support growth,” said Lloyd Chan, Senior Economist at the Oxford Economics think tank. Chan said the stimulus rolled out in this year’s Government Work Report and the 33 measures announced in May will feed through in the second half. New measures also include channeling CNY300 billion to specific projects, along with allocating an additional quota of CNY500 billion in local government special bonds that will be utilized by the end of October as new infrastructure projects become available for infrastructure financing.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that fixed-asset investment increased by 5.8% year-on-year in the January to August period. Infrastructure investment jumped 8.3% during the first eight months of the year. Yang Haiping, Researcher at the Central University of Finance and Economics’ Institute of Securities and Futures, said infrastructure investment will likely accelerate in the second half of the year, the China Daily reports.
