Under the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and economic downward pressure, the provinces have recently launched a huge investment program intensively. Not only that, the call to launch a new round of large-scale infrastructure is also growing.
7 provinces launch 25 trillion key projects
In the 15th press conference on the prevention and control of the new Crown pneumonia outbreak in Yunnan Province, Guo Jinhua, director of the Fixed Asset Investment Division of the Development and Reform Commission of Yunnan Province, said that in 2020, Yunnan will launch 525 key projects, with a total investment of about 5 trillion yuan, and in 2020, it is planned to complete an investment of More than 440 billion yuan.
Yunnan is not the only province to release an investment plan at the critical stage of preventing and controlling the new Crown pneumonia epidemic. Since work resumed around the country after the Spring Festival, several provinces have released investment plans for key projects in 2020.
On February 20, Henan Province released 980 key construction projects in 2020, with a total investment of 3.3 trillion yuan, and plans to complete an investment of 837.2 billion yuan in 2020, covering six major areas of industrial transformation and development, innovation drive, infrastructure, new urbanization, ecological and environmental protection, and people's livelihoods and social undertakings.
On February 25, the Fujian Provincial Development and Reform Commission issued the Notice on Issuing the List of Provincial Key Projects for 2020, identifying 1,567 key projects in Fujian Province in 2020 with a total investment of 3.84 trillion yuan. Among them, there are 1,257 projects under construction, with a total investment of 2.97 trillion yuan, and an annual planned investment of 500.5 billion yuan; 310 preparatory projects, with an investment of 0.87 trillion yuan.
And before the Spring Festival, Sichuan, Chongqing, Shaanxi and Hebei provinces have released this year's key project investment plan. 2020, Sichuan Province, 700 key projects, plans a total investment of about 4.4 trillion yuan, the annual investment is expected to be more than 600 billion yuan; Chongqing Municipality, 1,136 major projects, with a total investment of 2.6 trillion yuan, the annual plan to complete the investment of 347.6 billion yuan; Shaanxi Province, 600 key projects, with a total investment of 3.38 trillion yuan, annual investment of 501.4 billion yuan; Hebei Province, 536 key projects, with a total investment of 1.88 trillion yuan, the annual plan to invest 240.2 billion yuan.
From these seven provinces announced key project investment plan, the total investment is close to 25 trillion yuan, 2020 annual plan to complete the investment is also nearly 3.5 trillion yuan. In addition, the country's other provinces announced a list of key projects, but did not announce the total amount of investment, as well as some provinces specific data is not detailed enough.
For example, the relevant person in charge of the Development and Reform Commission of Zhejiang Province, said in an interview with the media, in order to y promote the implementation of the Yangtze River Delta integration and development strategy, to support the implementation of major landmark projects, Zhejiang will focus on the future to promote the construction of more than 200 major projects, with a total investment of more than 2 trillion yuan in 2020 plans to invest about 300 billion yuan.
Yi Xiaoguang, president of Chongqing Comprehensive Economic Research Institute, told the first financial reporter that investment-driven economic growth is a feature of China's economy. These investment projects launched around the world are not in response to the epidemic, but are arranged in the annual plan. Of course, in response to the impact of the epidemic, localities will certainly pay more attention to the construction of some public **** infrastructure.
In fact, in various meetings around the co-ordination of epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, stabilizing investment as an important policy tool was highlighted. From the progress of key projects to resume work and production to the rationing of all kinds of factors, as well as policy measures to cope with the epidemic, all around the strong stabilization of investment.
On February 28, the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee held a standing committee meeting and the provincial party committee to deal with the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic work leading group sixth meeting, required to focus on the "Troika" precise force, give full play to the key role of investment, seize the policy window efforts to expand government investment, leading to the expansion of social investment.
Experts suggest launching a "new infrastructure"
Now, to expand the scale of infrastructure to stabilize the investment and then pull the idea of economic growth again in the spotlight.
For example, Ren Zeping, director of the Evergrande Institute of Economic Research, recently suggested launching a new round of infrastructure. According to Ren Zeping, the simplest and most effective way to hedge against the epidemic and economic downturn is still infrastructure, and the launch of a "new infrastructure" will help stabilize growth and employment, unleash the growth potential of China's economy, and enhance long-term competitiveness.
Before this new pneumonia epidemic, China adopted a large-scale expansion of infrastructure to cope with the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the SARS epidemic in 2003 and the international financial crisis in 2008.
For launching large-scale investment to cope with the crisis, Wang Xiaogang, deputy head of the Sichuan Provincial Decision-Making Advisory Committee's macro group, told China Business News that this is a special initiative under special circumstances, which can restore the economy as soon as possible, and the epidemic reflects the short boards that we have, and making up for the short boards is a relatively clear direction for investment.
China *** Central Politburo meeting also pointed out that the positive fiscal policy to be more active and play a good policy financial role. Stable monetary policy should be more flexible and moderate, to ease the financing difficulties and financing expensive. The meeting emphasized the need to actively expand effective demand, promote consumption back and potential release, play a good role in the key role of effective investment, increase the start of new investment projects, accelerate the progress of the construction of projects under construction.
"The outbreak has revealed that we still have some short board weaknesses in the areas of social governance, public **** health facilities, emergency capacity building, material reserve system. Short board is the next step in the investment growth potential is where the development space. We will make up for the short boards and strengthen the weak points with greater vigor and precision to improve the quality and efficiency of economic development." Cong Liang, secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said on Feb. 24 at a news conference on the State Council's joint prevention and control mechanism.
In the 15th press conference on the prevention and control of the new Crown pneumonia outbreak in Yunnan Province, Yunnan Province released the infrastructure "double ten" major projects, a total investment of about 3.6 trillion yuan, mainly focusing on infrastructure, including railroads, highways, cross-border power grids and smart grids, and full coverage of the 5G network, Multimodal logistics network ten major projects.
However, according to Ren Zeping, the key to launching a "new" round of infrastructure is "new", and it is necessary to use reforms and innovations to promote a new round of infrastructure construction, rather than simply retreading the old path. For example, to adjust the field of investment, to make up for the railroads, highways, rail transportation and other traditional infrastructure on the basis of vigorously developing 5G, artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, smart cities, education and health care and other new infrastructure.
Easy Xiaoguang also believes that investment is the grip of stable growth, but the structure of investment determines the future supply structure, is an important aspect of the structure can be optimized. The current stage of investment pull and previous investment labor is different, the key lies in how to expand effective investment.
So he believes that expanding investment should focus on making up for the shortcomings of China's economy, most importantly the shortcomings of promoting high-quality economic development. As well as the infrastructure needed to promote the development direction we have identified can be appropriately overbuilt, thus shaping the hardware environment for the development of the new economy and leading economic growth.