Rapid warming of infrastructure
Infrastructure investment took the lead in stabilizing and rebounding. Since the outbreak, infrastructure, as an important starting point for stabilizing investment and ensuring employment, has taken the lead in recovery. After the Spring Festival, the policy promoted the priority of major projects to resume work and production, and infrastructure investment took the lead in stabilizing and rebounding under the countercyclical policy. Since February, the growth rate of fixed assets investment has rebounded from -24.5% to-1.6%, and the decline rate has narrowed by 22.9%, among which the growth rates of infrastructure, real estate and manufacturing have increased by 29.3%, 19.7% and 2 1.3% respectively.
The rapid warming of infrastructure is also reflected in relevant data. Infrastructure investment led to a rebound in the construction industry, the turnover of construction steel continued to be higher than in previous years, and the sales of excavators and heavy trucks increased significantly. Judging from the construction orders, the newly signed contracts recovered quickly after the epidemic, especially the infrastructure contracts grew the fastest.
Policy-oriented: short-board infrastructure, not strong stimulus.
The strength of fiscal policy is basically in line with expectations. This year, deficit ratio plans to increase its fiscal deficit by 1 trillion yuan, increase its special debt by 3.75 trillion yuan, and issue special government bonds by 1 trillion yuan. Among them, 1 trillion yuan deficit and 1 trillion yuan special national debt all support local governments, and the funds go directly to cities and counties, which are mainly used for "six guarantees" and medical infrastructure construction. Policy stimulus is still strong, and overall it is in line with expectations.
The investment in budget is basically the same as that in highway and waterway. In 2020, the central budget will invest 600 billion yuan, only 22.4 billion yuan more than last year. The government work report does not set investment targets for railways, highways and waterways. According to the deployment of the previous transportation work conference, the expected goal in 2020 is to complete the railway investment of about 800 billion yuan and the highway and waterway investment of about10.8 trillion yuan. 19 The press conference of the State Council Office in May reconfirmed the annual target of highway and waterway investment10.8 trillion yuan.
The policy pays attention to practical results, while strictly controlling local debt. On July 30th, the meeting of the Political Bureau continued to mention that "fiscal policy should be more active and promising" and further pointed out that "we should pay attention to actual results" and "we should guarantee the construction funds of major projects and pay attention to quality and efficiency". In fact, this is in line with the requirements of the Notice on Accelerating the Issuance and Use of Local Government Special Bonds (hereinafter referred to as the Notice) issued by the Ministry of Finance on July 29th. While the finance continues to exert its strength, local debt continues to be strictly managed. On June 8th, the National Finance Department (bureau) forum called for "strengthening the accountability of illegal debt borrowing, not ignoring the debt risk because of the epidemic situation, and not creating new risks because of financial difficulties. Never leave behind the sequelae of solving short-term problems and firmly hold the bottom line without systemic risks. " 1 It can be seen that although the policy is strong, it is still adhered to. From this perspective, it may be difficult for infrastructure investment to surpass the previous rounds of steady growth.
Sun Binbin said that similar information can be obtained from State Grid, China Railway Corporation and water conservancy projects: infrastructure investment has increased, but it has not been strongly stimulated.
On July 2 1 day, the state grid held a mid-year work conference in 2020, indicating that the investment in fixed assets will increase to 4,600.2 billion yuan, which is expected to drive social investment to exceed 900 billion yuan, and the overall scale will reach 1.4 trillion yuan. Since the beginning of this year, State Grid has increased its annual investment plan twice, with an initial plan of 408 billion yuan, increased to 450 billion yuan in March and increased to 460 billion yuan again in July, which is the same as the investment scale in 20 19.
In terms of water conservancy investment, there is strong rain in the south this year, and water conservancy investment will be the key direction in the future. On July 8th, the Standing Committee of the State Council studied and deployed 150 major water conservancy projects in 2020-2022, with a total investment of about 1.29 trillion yuan and an average annual investment of about 400 billion yuan, which means that the project reserves are relatively sufficient.
In terms of railways, affected by the epidemic, the railway investment in the first quarter was only 79.9 billion yuan, down 2 1% year-on-year. In the second quarter, China Railway Corporation increased its railway investment plan (820 billion yuan), stepped up the organization and implementation of projects under construction, and completed an investment of 245.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of1/.4%. In the first half of the year, the national railway fixed assets investment was 325.8 billion yuan, 3.8 billion yuan more than the same period of last year, with a year-on-year increase of 1.2%. In recent years, the national railway investment is basically 800 billion, which is basically the same as that of the same period of that year. Since the outbreak, China National Railway Group Co., Ltd.' s passenger revenue and profits have been hit. Although the capital increase is 654.38 billion, the investment scale is relatively limited.
Only the steady growth of infrastructure.
There is an obvious difference between infrastructure and real estate investment: infrastructure projects have low or no income, so it is difficult to achieve endogenous growth, and external funds need to be continuously invested, either from financial funds or relying on government credit loans; Due to its financial nature, the rise in real estate prices has stimulated sales and promoted mortgage financing. If there are no policy restrictions, as long as the market is expected to be stable, it can form a self-cycle.
Therefore, we can see that in every round of steady growth, infrastructure is often the first to make efforts to stabilize the basic market, and then with the recovery of the real estate market, the investment in infrastructure is correspondingly weakened and the economy is officially stabilized. Of course, consumption and foreign trade will also pick up in different degrees in this process, but there is no doubt that real estate is an important part of it. It can be seen that the two rounds of economic stabilization in 2009 and 20 16 conform to this law.
Looking back on the past three rounds of steady growth, we can basically see that steady investment usually requires the concerted efforts of infrastructure and real estate, and the current real estate policy is tightened again. Only in terms of infrastructure, the degree and sustainability of its economic pull remains to be seen. China's inventory cycle is basically a real estate cycle. After the epidemic, the inventory cycle may continue to rise last year, but in the absence of real estate, this round of inventory cycle will be weaker than the last round.