In the first and second months of the year, the Bureau of statistics will not release investment data. The strength of countercyclical hedging policy and the geometry of infrastructure development in the first quarter need to be tracked with high-frequency data. This is also the intention of this article. Look at infrastructure with high-frequency data.
Observing the progress of infrastructure investment from four dimensions
From capital to project implementation, the data of infrastructure projects involves four links, including financing status, construction enterprise orders, construction material consumption and construction machinery commencement data. Observing the actual operation of infrastructure investment, we can start from the four dimensions of capital, orders, construction consumption and construction machinery, and carry out differentiated tracking for the three major categories of infrastructure industries (power, transportation and public facilities).
Dimension 1: infrastructure construction from the perspective of financing
Budgetary funds, Chinese loans and self raised funds are important components of capital construction sources. Funds from different sectors can observe infrastructure construction from different angles.
Budgetary funds can help to observe the subjective enthusiasm of promoting infrastructure at the policy level; The medium and long-term loans of enterprises with monthly frequency are helpful to judge whether the supporting infrastructure financing is followed up; Hidden debt regulatory rules can be tracked through non-standard financing; Relatively high-frequency special bonds and urban investment bonds can be used to judge the specific sectors of policy guidance and sensitively capture the marginal changes of infrastructure financing.
Dimension 2: infrastructure construction from the perspective of construction enterprise orders
Overall, the order growth rate of central enterprises in the construction industry seems difficult to reflect the prosperity of infrastructure investment, which may be related to housing construction and order cycle. The order details of some enterprises may point to a certain type of infrastructure investment, for example, China Communications Construction Company Limited(601800) road and Bridge orders point to road investment, Power Construction Corporation Of China Ltd(Powerchina Ltd)(601669) orders point to power investment, etc. It should be emphasized that the orders of construction enterprises can only be used as verification means because they are disclosed quarterly.
Dimension 3: infrastructure construction from the perspective of industrial products
There are great differences in the supply and demand logic of different industrial products. To observe the progress of infrastructure construction from the perspective of industrial products, technical adjustments need to be made. Specifically, this paper discusses in detail three groups of data used to observe capital construction: spiral price difference predicts the direction of capital construction investment, copper pole starts to judge the direction of power grid project investment, and asphalt reflects the change of road investment climate. Other high-frequency data, such as medium and thick sector, PE pipe, H-shaped steel, zinc and steel sheet pile, can reflect some capital construction investment.
Dimension 4: construction machinery and infrastructure
The operating hours of excavator can confirm the construction intensity of the construction industry, and the release time node is relatively ahead, with high data timeliness. The start-up time of other types of machinery can reflect the start-up of the subdivided infrastructure industry, but the disadvantage is the poor availability of data.
To sum up, the commencement time of construction machinery can reflect the construction intensity of the construction industry; The relationship between construction machinery sales and infrastructure investment is weak.
Judging infrastructure investment in the first quarter of 2022 from four dimensions
According to the investment data itself, infrastructure investment rebounded rapidly in December 2021, with a range reaching a new high in the same period since 2013.
The front-end financing side has improved. In November 2021, the financial expenditure related to infrastructure has made significant efforts, the issuance of special bonds has increased significantly in the fourth quarter, and the financed funds are expected to be landed at the beginning of 2022, promoting the large-scale investment in infrastructure in the first quarter.
High frequency data of industrial products, copper rod starts rebounding; The apparent consumption of steel bars, cement and other building materials rebounded against the background of the weakening of new housing construction, which confirmed that the infrastructure was well implemented; The volume and price of various industrial products have risen simultaneously.
According to the data of construction machinery, the operating hours of excavators are better than the seasonality, which verifies the improvement of the landscape of the construction industry.
Risk warning: the epidemic development exceeded expectations; The downward pressure on economic growth exceeded expectations; The policy exceeded expectations.
