Main points:
In 2022, it has become a consensus that the macro policy should promote steady growth, but the starting point of “steady growth” is not clear. Under the setting tone of “moderately ahead of infrastructure investment”, the market has high expectations for infrastructure development.
In 2021, the capital construction funds and project ends are weak, and the annual capital construction growth rate is low. On the capital side, in 2021, the capital self raised and budgeted funds will shrink. Among the self raised funds, the expenditure of government funds from January to November 2021 was 9.1 trillion yuan, lower than the level of 9.5 trillion yuan in 2020; The new scale of urban investment bonds was 1.9 trillion yuan, slightly lower than the level in 2020. Among the national budget funds, the fiscal expenditure in the field of infrastructure from January to November 2021 was 4.5 trillion yuan, and the public fiscal expenditure decreased in favor of the field of infrastructure. On the project side, the number of projects and investment scale declared by the online approval and supervision platform of investment projects in 12 provinces, cities and autonomous regions decreased significantly.
In 2022, the capital investment limit is still on the capital side, and the project has strengthened or rebounded with the demand for steady growth. From the capital side, first, the increase of financial support is not large. The central economic conference pointed out that “we should pay more attention to accuracy and sustainability”, and it is expected that the deficit rate will not increase significantly. Second, it is expected that the scale of new special debt will not exceed 2020. At present, the scale of special debt of 1.46 trillion has been issued in advance. According to the proportion of special debt issued in advance in 2019, the amount of new special debt in 2022 will be about 3.0-3.3 trillion yuan, not exceeding the scale of 3.47 trillion yuan in 2021. Third, nearly 90% of government fund revenue comes from land concessions. Even if the marginal of real estate sales picks up in 2022, it is difficult to achieve significant growth. On the project side, from the perspective of project declarations of provinces and cities in 2019 and 2020, the total number of projects in 2020 increased by 125000 compared with that in 2019, and the year-on-year growth rates of total investment of declared projects in 2019, 2020 and 2021 were 16.4%, 59.3% and – 20.2% respectively. The growth rate increased significantly in 2020, and the intention of “steady growth” may alleviate the problem of “lack of projects” in infrastructure.
The capital side of the “new infrastructure” has low dependence on the funds in the budget and has large room for development. Xiao Gang, former chairman of the CSRC, pointed out in his speech that “new infrastructure is very different from traditional infrastructure. First, the form and boundary of new infrastructure are constantly expanding. Second, new infrastructure has fast innovation speed and short iteration cycle. Third, new infrastructure will stimulate new industrial demand. These characteristics determine that enterprises are the main body of new infrastructure investment”. According to the data, the proportion of information transmission “infrastructure investment / funds in the national budget” is significantly higher than that of electric heating, transportation and water conservancy infrastructure, and the investment in new infrastructure is less dependent on funds in the budget.
The “new infrastructure” project has broad space, and the theoretical average annual new investment scale reaches 4-5 trillion yuan. The interpretation draft of new infrastructure construction in the 14th five year plan points out that “in the future, new infrastructure investment will continue to expand, the investment growth rate will reach double digits, and the cumulative investment scale is expected to reach 20 trillion yuan by 2025”, that is, the average annual new scale will reach 4-5 trillion yuan. According to the “new infrastructure” planning of some provinces and cities, the investment scale of new infrastructure in China during 2020-2022 is about 10 trillion yuan.
In 2022, “new infrastructure” is expected to drive the growth rate of infrastructure by about 0.4-0.7 percentage points, accounting for 15% of infrastructure investment. Public financial expenditure, special bonds and medium and long-term loans are used as capital sources to predict the growth rate of capital construction. It is estimated that the growth rate of capital construction investment in 2022 will be between 3.0% – 5.0%. Considering that the “new infrastructure” is in the early stage of development, it is conservatively assumed that the investment scale of “new infrastructure” in 2022 will be 2.5-3.0 trillion yuan, accounting for 12% – 15% of the total infrastructure investment, driving the annual infrastructure growth rate by 0.4-0.7 percentage points.
According to the interpretation draft of new infrastructure construction in the 14th five year plan, we screened out the main fields and keywords of “new infrastructure”: 1. Infrastructure evolved based on the new generation of information technology (5g, data center, artificial intelligence, block chain); 2. Intelligent transformation of traditional infrastructure (Industrial Internet, intelligent transportation / logistics / energy / people’s livelihood / environment / city); 3. Public welfare infrastructure supporting scientific research and Technological Development (National Laboratory, big data storage and innovation service facilities).
Risk tips: data statistics are biased, industry prosperity is not up to expectations, macroeconomic fluctuations exceed expectations, and epidemic development exceeds expectations.
