Major projects in many places in China are striving to expand investment "a good start"

Original title: (Economic Observation) Major projects in China's many places are striving to expand investment "a good start"

　　China News Agency, Beijing, January 5 (Reporter Wang Enbo) At the beginning of 2023, many construction sites in China are already busy.

As various places successively finalize the layout of major projects in the first quarter and even the whole year, China will strive to expand effective investment to get off to a good start.

　　January 3rd is the first working day of this year. On this day alone, officials from many provinces have announced big moves.

At the on-site promotion activities of major projects in Sichuan Province in the first quarter of 2023 held on the same day, 423 major projects officially started construction, with a total investment of 748.37 billion yuan (RMB, the same below); the first quarter investment and key projects in Anhui Province were promoted on the same day The meeting revealed that in the first quarter, the province started a total of 1,017 projects 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 focus more on year-round planning.

For example, Chongqing is initially considering an investment of 400 billion yuan in major municipal projects in 2023, which will 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 are deployed at a rapid pace in various places, which reflects China's continuous efforts to expand effective investment.

　　Investment is the key to stabilizing growth in the short term.

Since last year, under the circumstances of a significant decline in investment in real estate development, Chinese officials have continued to increase efforts to stabilize investment and accelerate the construction of major projects, which has strongly supported the steady growth of investment in fixed assets.

　　According to the spokesperson of China's National Development and Reform Commission, the department actively promotes the implementation of investment policies.

Efforts will be made to promote policy-based developmental financial instruments to support the construction of major projects, as well as special re-loans and financial discounts to support the renovation of supporting equipment.

As of the end of November 2022, more than 2,700 projects supported by two batches of 739.9 billion yuan in financial instruments have all started construction; the annual 640 billion yuan in the central budget investment has all been issued, and the project start rate has reached the highest level in the past five years.

　　In this context, in the first 11 months of 2022, the completed investment in large projects with a planned total investment of 100 million yuan or more in China increased by 11.9% year-on-year, which was 6.6 percentage points higher than the total investment.

During the same period, the total planned 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%, providing strong support for the sustained and stable 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 guarantee of funds and other elements for this purpose.

　　From the perspective of funds, special bonds are an important means to promote the expansion of effective investment and stabilize the macro economy.

As of the end of November in 2022, China will issue 4 trillion yuan of new local government special bonds to support the construction of nearly 30,000 key projects.

China's Finance Minister Liu Kun recently stated that in 2023, special bond funds will be appropriately expanded to invest in areas and be used as capital, so as to continue to form physical workloads and investment driving forces, and promote the overall improvement of economic operations.

　　Regarding the direction of investment, 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 "14th Five-Year Plan" plan, and strive to accelerate the construction of major projects.

Moderately advance infrastructure investment, systematically deploy 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 ensure 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 multiple strategic emerging industries such as smart equipment, new materials, and life and health.

The projects started in Anhui involve many industries such as manufacturing, infrastructure, and livelihood projects, among which the investment in manufacturing projects accounts for 70.8% of the total investment.

These projects are mainly carried out around strengthening the foundation, strengthening weak links, and increasing momentum, which is not only conducive to the current stable growth, but also focuses on the long-term future.

　　"Take investment as the connecting point connecting short-term stable growth and long-term transformation of the model. If you do it well, you can kill two birds with one stone." Huang Yiping, deputy dean of the National Development Research Institute of Peking University, believes that expanding effective investment in 2023 is still the focus of China's economic policy, especially in the Expand high-quality investment in high-end manufacturing, digital economy, green development and other fields, and combine demand-side management with supply-side structural reforms, which can not only achieve short-term stable growth, but also contribute to long-term economic transformation.

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