Accelerate the construction of new infrastructure projects such as 5G and integrated data centers

Since the beginning of this year, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on my country's investment, and the investment growth rate has once dropped sharply. From January to February, investment fell by 24.5%. How do you view the investment growth rate this year? How will efforts be made to promote investment in the fourth quarter?

In response to this, the National Development and Reform Commission responded at a regular press conference on September 16. The NDRC stated that as various policy measures continue to take effect, the construction of major projects has accelerated and the investment growth rate has rebounded month by month. In the next step, the NDRC will focus on expanding effective investment in the "two new and one heavy" areas.

According to the National Development and Reform Commission, the growth rate of investment has been recovering month by month. In the second quarter, investment grew by 4.8%, an increase of 20.9 percentage points over the first quarter. In July, investment grew by 6.7%, and in August, it grew by 8.4%, maintaining positive growth for five consecutive months. In particular, as funds such as central budget investment, special bonds, and special national bonds for epidemic prevention are successively issued, the start of projects and the availability of funds continue to improve, and investment is expected to continue the overall trend of stabilization and improvement.

The NDRC stated that in the next step, the NDRC will continue to work with relevant parties to adhere to the principle of following projects with factors such as funds and land, and further play a key role in investment.

First, we will focus on expanding effective investment in the fields of "two new and one heavy". The focus is on achieving "three accelerations and two strengthenings". The "three accelerations" refer to accelerating the construction of new infrastructure such as 5G and integrated data centers, accelerating the construction of new urbanization with a focus on county urbanization to make up for shortcomings and strengthen weaknesses, and accelerating the construction of major projects in the fields of transportation, water conservancy, and logistics infrastructure. The "two strengthenings" refer to urging and guiding local governments to strengthen the reserve of major projects, strengthening the land guarantee for major construction projects by sorting out and providing a list of major projects, and promoting the implementation of major projects as soon as possible.

Second, we will focus on improving the efficiency of fund use and effectively use the funds. On the one hand, we will urge and guide all localities to speed up the implementation of the central budget investment plan and project construction progress, and form physical workload as soon as possible; we will urge local governments to speed up the issuance and use of special bonds and give full play to the benefits of special bonds as soon as possible. On the other hand, we will organize the preparation of the 2021 central budget investment plan and make early preparations for next year's special bond projects.

Third, we should pay more attention to mobilizing the enthusiasm of private investment. From the data of January to August, the decline of private investment has narrowed significantly, which is a positive signal. We should further implement various policies and measures to stimulate the vitality of private investment. In terms of mechanism building, we should further improve the long-term mechanism for promoting projects to private capital, support private investment in filling shortcomings and new infrastructure construction; further standardize and innovate the promotion of PPP model to attract private capital participation; steadily promote the pilot of real estate investment trust funds (REITs) in the field of infrastructure, revitalize the stock assets of infrastructure, and fully mobilize the enthusiasm of private investment.