Reading Guide:
At present, the downward pressure on China's economy is increasing, and steady growth returns to the primary goal of the policy. Special bonds and urban investment bonds, as important sources of funds affecting infrastructure investment, have attracted much attention. How is the issuance progress of special bonds? What is the proportion of investment in infrastructure? What are the characteristics? Whether the supervision of urban investment bonds is relaxed? How about net financing? Has the situation of "polarization" among regions changed? This paper mainly answers the above questions.
Summary:
In previous periods of great downward pressure on the economy, urban investment bonds, PPP and non-standard are important sources of funds to drive infrastructure. With the policy of "opening the front door and blocking the back door", the importance of special debt to infrastructure has increased in recent years, and has gradually become the main focus of stabilizing investment and promoting infrastructure. Under the tone of strict control of hidden debt, urban investment bond financing continues the overall tight policy guidance. Since the first quarter of this year, special bonds and urban investment bonds have continued to "advance" and "retreat", highlighting the current policy orientation of paying equal attention to steady growth and risk prevention.
From the actual effect, the "advance" of special bonds is difficult to make up for the capital gap of infrastructure investment caused by the "retreat" of urban investment platform. At present, infrastructure investment faces three contradictions: one is the contradiction between the large issuance of special bonds and the decline of project marginal income and financial sustainability; the other is the contradiction between the increase of bank credit and the weakening of social capital expectation and the decline of willingness of infrastructure investment; the third is to strictly control local implicit debt Avoid the contradiction between the rapid rise of macro leverage ratio and the decline of local available financial resources and rigid expenditure. If the policy is not overweight, it is expected that the growth rate of infrastructure investment will be high before and low after 2022, and it is difficult to rebound sharply as a whole, maintaining the judgment of annual growth rate of 4% - 6%.
I. special bonds were issued in large quantities in the first quarter, showing four characteristics
First, the pace of distribution is accelerated. In the first quarter, a total of 1298.1 billion yuan of new special bonds were issued, completing 88.9% of the quota issued by the Ministry of Finance in advance, accounting for 35.6% of the new quota in the whole year, and the issuance progress was 34.9 percentage points faster than that of last year.
Second, the investment direction is more optimized. The proportion of investment in infrastructure related fields reached 61.6% in the first quarter, an increase of 2.3 percentage points over the whole year of 2021, which is related to the financial force to stabilize infrastructure.
Third, tilt to key areas. The issuance scale of new special bonds in Guangdong, Shandong and Zhejiang provinces is at the top, all exceeding 100 billion yuan, accounting for 33.3% of the total issuance scale in China.
Fourth, the prying effect is stronger. In the first quarter, a total of 19 provinces used special bonds as project capital, with a total scale of 116.5 billion yuan, accounting for 9.0% of the issuance scale of special bonds, while the proportion of special bonds used as capital in the whole year of last year was about 5.2%.
II. Stricter supervision of urban investment and financing and reduction of net financing
Against the background of preventing and resolving hidden debt risks, the urban investment bond financing policy has maintained the overall tight trend since 2021, and even increased.
In the first quarter, the issuing end of urban investment bonds was still tight, the approval was relatively scarce, and the amount of termination of review increased significantly. In the first quarter of 2022, the termination review amount of urban investment bonds was 118.51 billion yuan, 2.7 times that of the same period in 2021. In addition, from the perspective of "termination of review / (passed the issuance and examination committee + registration effectiveness + termination of review)", the ratio rose sharply in May 2021 and February 2022, reaching 67.9% and 139.8% respectively, reflecting the impact of the two rounds of policy tightening on the issuance and registration pass rate respectively.
In the first quarter, the issuance and net financing scale of urban investment bonds declined. In the first quarter, a total of 1417 billion yuan of urban investment bonds were issued, a decrease of 134.2 billion yuan compared with the same period last year, and the net financing scale was 602.2 billion yuan, a decrease of 112.8 billion yuan compared with the same period last year, a year-on-year decrease of 15.8%. The marginal change of policy side is also reflected in the issuance structure of urban investment bonds, showing three obvious tendencies: public offering, high rating and short term.
The net financing of urban investment bonds in different regions has gradually moved from "polarization" last year to "mean return". In 2021, due to the stricter supervision of implicit debt and the cold land market, the growth rate of local actual available financial resources decreased, and the market investors had strong risk aversion. The urban investment bond market showed extreme polarization and uneven hot and cold in the provincial unit. However, it has gradually returned to the average from the first quarter of this year. The net financing scale of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong provinces still ranked among the top three in China, but it fell sharply compared with the same period last year, down 39.5%, 46.5% and 24.7% respectively. The net financing of Tianjin, Yunnan, Liaoning and other provinces improved significantly. Especially in Tianjin, the net financing scale of urban investment bonds in the first quarter was 13.3 billion yuan, which has ranked 14th in the country, an increase of 41.4 billion yuan over the same period last year.
The investment and financing platform has been divided into cities in a logical way, which not only reflects the changes in the investment and financing situation, but also reflects the gradual return of the investment and financing platform to the market.
Risk tip: the pulling effect of special bonds on infrastructure is less than expected, and the issuance policy of urban investment bonds is tightened than expected
