More Efforts to Steady Growth of Infrastructure Investment as an Important Grasp

Judging from the relevant policy statements of the local "two sessions" in the near future, the steady growth has become an important move at the beginning of the new year, with the issuance of special bonds and infrastructure investment becoming important starting points.  Experts believe that infrastructure growth is expected to pick up significantly in 2020 as the issuance of special bonds advances and increases in scale.

More Emphasis on Increasing Infrastructure Investment
Recently, local "two sessions" have been held intensively.  Among them, the "two sessions" in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Tibet Autonomous Region, Hebei, Shenzhen and Henan have been opened one after another.  Looking at the policies of various regions, increasing investment in infrastructure construction has become the focus of steady growth in various regions.
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region proposed to intensify infrastructure construction to promote high-quality economic development.  Tibet Autonomous Region proposed to put forward the layout of major construction projects and key projects in Tibet on the basis of finding out the current situation of Tibet's economic and social development.  Hebei has set a fixed asset investment growth of more than 6% in 2020.  Shenzhen has not directly set investment targets, but it also proposes to do a good job of "six stability", focusing on improving the quality of city functions and building a beautiful Shenzhen.
In addition, many investment documents have been issued.  For example, Sichuan has issued the "Promotion Plan for Large and Medium-sized Water Conservancy Projects in Sichuan Province";  Jiangxi will designate 2020 as "the year of accelerating project construction".
The National Development and Reform Commission recently held a working meeting, which proposed to do a good job in the implementation of major project reserves and strive to expand effective investment.  Meng Wei, a spokesman for the National Development and Reform Commission, said earlier that in the field of transportation infrastructure in 2020, the Commission would speed up the completion of the short boards of transportation infrastructure in line with the objectives set in the 13th Five-Year Plan.

Local bonds are issued intensively.
Closely related to infrastructure investment is the issuance of local special bonds.  In the first 10 days of January 2020, many local bonds, especially special bonds, were disclosed.
　　Wind data show that local debt issuance reached 417.9 billion yuan in January 2019 after it was launched in advance.  In 2020, the rhythm of local debt issuance is more obvious.  The Ministry of Finance has issued ahead of schedule a limit of 1 trillion yuan for some new special debts in 2020.  As of January 10, all localities have disclosed that the local debts planned to be issued between January 2 and 17 amount to 521.094 billion yuan, of which only 27.494 billion yuan are ordinary debts.
It is worth noting that, according to the China Bond Information Network, Sichuan plans to issue a total of 47 special bonds on the 2nd and 10th, with a total issue size of 50.738 billion yuan.  From the perspective of usage direction, these funds include toll roads, water supply construction, ecological environmental protection, urban and rural infrastructure construction, industrial park construction, hospital and school construction and other livelihood projects.
Experts predict that a higher proportion of special debt funds will be invested in infrastructure investment in 2020.  The chief fixed income analyst of CITIC Securities Mingming said that in the plan for the use of the raised funds announced in the first quarter of 2020, the use of the funds is relatively balanced.
The growth rate of infrastructure investment will pick up
Zhang Jun, chief economist of Morgan Stanley Huaxin Securities, said that there was no surplus problem in China's fixed asset investment in general.  At the current stage of economic development, it is still necessary to maintain a moderate to high economic growth rate, maintain a certain intensity of fixed asset investment growth rate, and continue to enhance the accumulation of capital stock.
Jiang Chao, chief economist of Haitong Securities, estimates that the growth rate of infrastructure financing will be 11% in 2020, which will obviously rise from the 5% in 2019.  Meanwhile, assuming that the gap between infrastructure financing and infrastructure investment in 2019 and 2020 is slightly narrower than that in 2017, the growth rate of infrastructure investment is expected to rise to about 8%-9% in 2020.
Judging from the increment of infrastructure financing, Jiang Chao believes that the greatest contribution comes from the improvement of self-raised funds, mainly due to the weakening of special bonds and non-standard drag, followed by funds from other sources and again funds within the budget.  Judging from the improvement in growth rate, the greatest improvement comes from other sources of funds and self-raised funds.
Song Yaqin, vice-president of the Da Yue Institute of Consulting and Research, believes that if the two policy tools of special debt and PPP can be organically combined to learn from each other's strong points, it is expected to give full play to the synergistic effect of the two in stabilizing growth, promoting investment and making up short boards, and strengthen the adjustment of counter-cyclical economy.