Enhance "leverage", serve new infrastructure, and revitalize real estate——

How to stabilize investment, how to develop fiscal and financial

  Investment plays a key role in stabilizing growth.

The "Government Work Report" proposes, "focusing on major national strategic deployments and the '14th Five-Year' plan, appropriately advance infrastructure investment", "to optimize the investment structure, solve investment problems, and effectively play the key role of investment."

  How to use financial means to create a "fulcrum" for leveraging social investment?

How to solve the "difficulties" of new infrastructure financing with development finance?

How to clear the "blocking point" of capital recycling in traditional infrastructure through capital market innovation?

The reporter conducted an interview.

  Fiscal measures stimulate social investment, stabilize expectations and lower the threshold

  During the Beijing Winter Olympics, the "Ice Ribbon" of the National Speed ​​Skating Hall attracted public attention.

It is understood that the National Speed ​​Skating Stadium is the first venue for the Beijing Winter Olympics to be constructed using the government-private partnership (PPP) model.

  In recent years, the PPP model has played an increasingly important role in stimulating effective investment.

In 2021, 451 major projects of new infrastructure, new urbanization, transportation and water conservancy construction will be signed and implemented, with an investment of 1,094.1 billion yuan; 456 construction projects will be started with an investment of 926.9 billion yuan.

  "These projects not only focus on adjusting the structure to increase stamina, but also promote consumption to benefit people's livelihood, and play an investment multiplier effect." Jiao Xiaoping, director of the PPP Center of the Ministry of Finance, said that the next step will focus on major national strategic tasks and support moderately advanced infrastructure development. .

  "Car friends, go and experience the coolness of driving on the 5G expressway!" In September last year, the news of the opening of Shawu Expressway, the first smart expressway in Guangxi, was reposted by many netizens.

This expressway, built with special debt funds as project capital and attracting social capital for combined financing, is of great significance to Guangxi's improvement of the transportation network and the development of interconnection towards ASEAN.

  In recent years, thanks to the support of special bonds, Guangxi's transportation construction has been advancing rapidly. By the end of 2021, the Finance Department of the Autonomous Region has approved 35 government toll roads for market-based supporting financing, with a supporting financing scale of more than 130 billion yuan.

"The new financing model can guide more social capital to participate in the construction of major projects, help reduce the pressure of financial investment, and effectively prevent local government debt risks while accelerating the implementation of projects." Wang Daiyu, deputy director of the Guangxi Department of Finance, said.

  "At present, the proportion of special debt funds that can be used for project capital in each province has increased to 25%, which can further encourage market institutions to use their own funds or credit funds to participate in construction." Associate Researcher of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences Long Xiaoyan said that in 2022, it is planned to arrange a new quota of 3.65 trillion yuan for local government special bonds, which is the same as the previous year. The physical workload will be formed as soon as possible in the first quarter of this year.

  Henan, Hainan and other provinces have successively announced plans for the issuance of local bonds in the first quarter. "From the perspective of capital investment, this year's special bonds will be mainly used for transportation infrastructure, energy, agriculture, forestry and water conservancy, ecological environmental protection, social undertakings, urban and rural cold chain and other logistics infrastructure. , municipal and industrial park infrastructure, major national strategic projects, affordable housing projects, etc. Use the 'leverage' function of special bonds to stabilize social capital expectations, further drive effective investment, support the expansion of domestic demand, stabilize Growth." Long Xiaoyan said.

  The Ministry of Finance recently stated that it will adhere to "funds follow the project", optimize the investment fields of special bonds, strictly supervise the use of funds, do not sprinkle "pepper noodles", focus on supporting projects under construction and those that can be started as soon as possible, and expand effective investment.

  Development finance develops new infrastructure, and financing is "intelligent"

  Southeast Health and Medical Big Data Center located in Binhai New Town, Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, the civil construction part of the project has been completed, and part of the computer room has been put into use.

  "At present, we have collected data from 17 hospitals in the province and started to provide hospitals with integrated services such as telemedicine and case big data analysis." Chen Lilin, general manager of Fujian Southeast Health Medical Big Data Center Construction and Operation Co., Ltd., introduced that the project construction At the beginning, it faced financing problems such as a large capital gap and few collaterals. Fortunately, the China Development Bank sent "timely rain".

  "We have customized the financing plan after building the project credit structure and determining the source of repayment. From 2019 to 2024, we will adopt the mode of investment, construction and operation at the same time." Yang Zhen, customer manager of CDB Fujian Branch, introduced, Up to now, CDB has issued more than 400 million yuan in loans to the project.

  "The financing plan is divided into two phases." Chen Lilin explained that "step-by-step" can use the rental income, data operation services and other cash flow generated by the invested part as a source of repayment to ensure that follow-up projects continue to receive loan support and build steadily .

  Accelerating the construction of new infrastructure such as 5G networks and data centers is an important deployment for my country to expand new economic growth points and cultivate new momentum for development.

However, new infrastructure is quite different from traditional infrastructure in terms of mortgage guarantee and project risk, and generally faces financing difficulties.

Hou Huawei, Director of the Second Industry Division of the Second Industry Department of the China Development Bank, gave an example: Since the commercialization of data elements is still in the exploratory stage, the profit model of the new infrastructure is not so clear; in addition to hardware equipment such as servers, the new infrastructure construction mainly includes software such as networks and algorithms. Most of the facilities are asset-light, and mortgage guarantees are difficult.

  Hou Huawei analyzed that new infrastructure projects often require a long market cultivation cycle. Development finance focuses on bank-government cooperation and can provide long-term loans. At the same time, it can also take advantage of policies and professional advantages to provide project design, system design, and market cultivation for new infrastructure. "intelligent" service.

  "Since 2019, China Development Bank has issued more than 35 billion yuan in new infrastructure loans. In the future, we are confident to increase financing support for new infrastructure." Hou Huawei said.

  The pilot project of real estate investment trust funds in the infrastructure sector is steadily advancing, promoting a virtuous circle of investment

  "We got on the first train of real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the infrastructure field, which opened up a new way for Shougang to revitalize its assets and open up a virtuous cycle of investment." Liu Jian, general manager of AVIC Fund, told reporters, taking Shougang Lujiashan After the "AVIC Shougang Green Energy REITs" whose waste incineration power generation project is the underlying asset was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the company raised funds of 1.338 billion yuan and will gradually invest in the construction of new environmental protection infrastructure projects.

  my country has a large number of high-quality infrastructure assets, but in the past, the financing channels for these projects were relatively simple, and most of them could only rely on debt to obtain financial support.

In April 2020, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly launched the pilot work of infrastructure REITs.

On June 21 last year, the first batch of infrastructure REITs were successfully listed on the exchange.

  "Infrastructure REITs refer to the transformation of real estate with continuous and stable income into asset-backed securities that can be traded and highly liquid through securitization." Yan Yunsong, director of the supervision department of the corporate bond supervision department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, introduced that from the first batch of From the perspective of pilot projects, various social funds, especially long-term funds, actively participate in investment; participating enterprises have revitalized their existing assets, reduced their debt levels, and actively invested the recovered funds as project capital in the investment and construction of similar and homogeneous infrastructure assets. The turnover of investment funds has been accelerated, forming a virtuous circle of existing assets and new investment.

  "''China Merchants Shekou Industrial Park REITs'' not only helps us open up the exit channel of heavy asset capitalization, but also helps to improve our asset-light operation and management capabilities and business scale development." Yu Yu, Assistant General Manager and General Manager of Asset Management Center, China Merchants Shekou Zhiliang said that the funds withdrawn from heavy assets by enterprises can be used to invest or acquire more industrial parks, and then cooperate with REITs to form a scale effect and a virtuous circle, which will help reduce costs and increase efficiency in operation and management, and form original rights holders, investors and investors. win-win situation.

  According to data from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, as of the end of last year, 11 infrastructure REITs had been listed on the stock exchange, covering industrial parks, highways, warehousing and logistics, sewage treatment and other asset types, raising a total of 36.4 billion yuan.

Yan Yunsong introduced that in the future, industries such as affordable rental housing, wind power or photovoltaic, hydropower, urban heating and water supply will be promoted to participate in the pilot infrastructure REITs, and priority will be given to supporting projects that are conducive to achieving the "dual carbon" goal, enhancing scientific and technological innovation capabilities, and improving people's livelihood. infrastructure projects.