It can be expected that with the acceleration of fiscal expenditure, the growth rate of infrastructure investment will pick up in the second half of the year. In the long run, China's potential in infrastructure investment is still huge: on the one hand, China's per capita infrastructure investment stock is only 20% to 30% of that of developed countries; On the other hand, the "new infrastructure" that has been included in the main line of economic growth this year has also opened up investment space.
The realization of the blueprint for infrastructure investment is also inseparable from diversified and efficient financing support.
1. Where does the infrastructure fund come from? How big is the space?
According to the statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics, the sources of capital construction investment mainly include funds in the national budget, domestic loans, self-raised funds, utilization of foreign capital and other funds. Among them, the first three types usually account for more than 90%, including general public budget, special bonds, special government bonds, urban investment bonds, PPP and other sources of funds.
In 2020, the national general public budget expenditure exceeded 24.7 trillion yuan, and the accumulated expenditure in the first half of the year was 1 1.6 trillion yuan, which means that it was about 13. 1 trillion yuan in the second half of the year. Historically, from 20 15 to 20 17, the proportion of budgetary fiscal expenditure invested in infrastructure increased steadily, and it is predicted that this proportion may climb to 12%- 13% in 2020.
The scale of special debt invested in infrastructure in 20 19 is about 0.6 trillion yuan. As project capital and supporting financing, it can incite 1. 1 trillion yuan of infrastructure investment. According to the data of the Ministry of Finance, in 2020, the scale of newly arranged special bonds nationwide increased by 74.4% over the previous year; At the same time, under the guidance of active fiscal policy, the scope and scale of special bonds as project capital in 2020 can be further enlarged, which is expected to incite larger-scale infrastructure investment.
Under the special background of 2020, the central government also issued a special anti-epidemic national debt. Of the 1 trillion special treasury bonds currently issued, 0.7 trillion ten-year varieties will be mainly invested in infrastructure projects, including public health system construction, urban old community reconstruction, municipal infrastructure construction and other 12 sub-industries.
Urban investment bonds, railway bonds and special bonds of the National Development and Reform Commission are also used to raise funds for infrastructure construction. Among them, urban investment bonds, as a financing tool mainly used for local infrastructure construction or public welfare projects, were once again entrusted with a heavy responsibility in the post-epidemic era. In the first half of 2020, the issuance scale of urban investment bonds exceeded 2 trillion, setting a record high in the same period, which will further broaden the capital space for infrastructure.
In the first half of 2020, the national government and social capital cooperation (PPP) comprehensive information platform management library added 482 projects with an investment of 0.79 trillion yuan. Although the number of new projects has decreased compared with last year, the project field is more biased towards infrastructure, and the investment in "two new and one heavy" projects alone accounts for 84.3% of all new warehousing projects. Looking forward to the second half of the year, combined with the Notice on Doing a Good Job in the Application of Real Estate Investment Trust Funds (REITs) Pilot Projects in Infrastructure issued by the National Development and Reform Commission on August 3, the "PPP+REITs" model will reduce the financing cost of PPP projects and increase efforts to incite infrastructure investment.
It is not difficult to find that the main source of capital for infrastructure will continue to provide sufficient and stable funds. It is estimated that in the second half of 2020, the situation of infrastructure investment will stabilize and improve, showing a pattern of "government investment driving+private investment following up".
2, infrastructure investment, incremental is more important.
After years of hard work, the marginal investment income of traditional infrastructure has declined, which has brought about problems such as rising economic leverage and inefficiency. Therefore, it is urgent to improve the quality of infrastructure investment while expanding the scale of infrastructure funds. Specifically, on the one hand, we should look for the direction of innovative investment with marginal force, on the other hand, we should implement innovative financing methods to improve efficiency.
In terms of investment direction, short board and growth board are the most important. The government work report in 2020 made arrangements for expanding effective investment, and clearly focused on major projects such as new infrastructure, new urbanization and transportation and water conservancy. Subsequently, the CBRC also made it clear that it would increase its financial support for "two new and one heavy". Infrastructure investment should grasp the transformation direction of innovation and technology, improving people's livelihood and industrial upgrading, so as to maximize the investment income of infrastructure in the whole life cycle.
From the perspective of financing methods, the government should actively play the role of fiscal funds in stimulating social capital while diversifying investment, and try out financing methods such as direct financing in capital market, fund raising for infrastructure construction, and bond issuance in different industries, and innovatively adopt financing tools such as REITs and mixed financing tools to match large-scale and long-term funds for infrastructure investment. For example, according to the Notice on Doing a Good Job in the Application of Real Estate Investment Trust Funds (REITs) Pilot Projects issued by the National Development and Reform Commission on August 3, "PPP+REITs" may reduce the financing cost of PPP projects and promote the improvement of infrastructure financing benefits.
In addition, while expanding investment scale and improving investment efficiency, we should also do a good job in the management of infrastructure funds to ensure the effective use of funds and the smooth progress of infrastructure projects.
According to industry analysts, from the perspective of the growth rate of electricity consumption in the whole society, the growth rate of excavator sales and the high PMI in the construction industry, it is expected that infrastructure investment will maintain a high growth rate in the second half of the year, and infrastructure investment will also play a countercyclical role in stimulating GDP and supporting the economy. In the future, in a larger capital space, infrastructure will also play a better role in stabilizing growth and protecting people's livelihood.