New infrastructure construction from the perspective of high-quality development

If the 5G network, artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, Internet of things, data center and other new generation of information infrastructure is defined as new infrastructure, then new infrastructure construction (hereinafter referred to as "new infrastructure") is not a new thing. In 2018, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed that in order to promote the formation of a strong domestic market, the potential for investment demand at this stage of China's development is still huge, and it is necessary to play a key role in investment, accelerate the pace of 5G commercial use, and strengthen the construction of new infrastructure such as artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, and the Internet of Things. Subsequently, in the 2019 government Work report, it was proposed to strengthen the construction of a new generation of information infrastructure. On July 30, 2019, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee once again stressed the need to accelerate the construction of new infrastructure such as information networks for the economic work in the second half of the year. Even, the "new infrastructure" can be traced back to the 2008 international financial crisis, when the world in response to the international financial crisis to seek new economic growth points, which greatly promoted the acceleration of a new round of scientific and technological and industrial revolution, since then the so-called new infrastructure has been the direction of global investment and capital markets.

Under the impact of the new coronavirus epidemic, the Central Committee has repeatedly mentioned accelerating "new infrastructure" at many recent meetings, and the market is also highly concerned about the hot topic of "new infrastructure", and some people will use it as a new "stimulus plan". Indeed, accelerating the "new infrastructure" has the function of expanding domestic demand and ensuring the realization of the 2020 economic growth target, but the "new infrastructure" is not new, in fact, it is the continuation of the above policies. The scientific attitude is to embed the "new infrastructure" in the needs of China's high-quality development, so that it objectively plays the role of expanding domestic demand and promoting growth. Specifically, the new infrastructure should be understood as the infrastructure of new industrialization, new urbanization and modern economic system, and the "new infrastructure" should be able to serve the high-quality industrialization and high-quality urbanization strategy, and should be able to adhere to the supply-side structural reform, which can truly serve the high-quality development of China's economy and avoid returning to the old road of "flood irrigation".

The new infrastructure should be the infrastructure of the new industrialization and support the strategy of high-quality industrialization

The prevailing view in the capital market is that the new infrastructure mainly includes seven areas: 5G infrastructure, UHV (power Internet of Things), high-speed rail (rail transit), charging pile (new energy vehicles), data center (cloud computing), artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, before this, some technology research institutions define the new infrastructure as a new generation of intelligent information infrastructure integrating perception, transmission, storage, computing, and processing. In fact, although these definitions are more specific, the connotation is too narrow to truly interpret the full meaning of the "new" of new infrastructure. The "new" should correspond to the "traditional", and the new infrastructure should correspond to the traditional infrastructure, and the traditional infrastructure is generally what we understand as the traditional industrial infrastructure such as railways, roads, airports, port city facilities, which is basically based on the mechanical technology, electrical technology, communication technology and other applications of the last round of industrial revolution. The new type of infrastructure is the infrastructure of the new industrialization, the so-called new industrialization is on the basis of traditional industrialization superimposed information, digital, networking, intelligent, green and other requirements, is the new round of science and technology and industrial revolution of information technology, intelligent technology, new energy technology and other results. The new infrastructure includes not only the new generation of intelligent information infrastructure and new energy infrastructure, but also the information, intelligent and green facilities after the transformation of traditional infrastructure. Therefore, the new infrastructure should be the infrastructure of the new industrialization, including not only the new generation of intelligent information infrastructure, but also all kinds of infrastructure related to greening; It should include not only the above seven areas, but also various infrastructure supporting the deepening and expanding new round of scientific and technological and industrial revolution.

As China is a late modernizing country, China's industrialization road is not a traditional industrialization road, but a new industrialization road that integrates information technology and green requirements. On the road of new industrialization, China has rapidly promoted the process of industrialization. Based on the evaluation of industrialization theory, China's industrialization process has entered the late stage of industrialization. However, China's industrialization process still has the problem of imbalance and inadequacy, and the quality of industrialization needs to be improved. First, the process of industrialization in different regions is unbalanced, and the level of industrialization in some regions is insufficient. Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and so on have entered the stage of post-industrialization, but there are still a considerable number of central and western provinces in the middle stage of industrialization. The second is the unbalanced structure of industrial development, the insufficient development of innovation capacity and high-end industries, the problem of low-level overcapacity in steel, petrochemical, building materials and other industries is prominent and long-standing, and the insufficient development of high-end industries and the lack of high-end links in the industrial value chain, independent innovation capacity needs to be improved. Third, the speed of industrialization is unbalanced with the carrying capacity of resources and environment, the development of green economy is insufficient, and the rapid industrialization process of 1.4 billion people has posed great challenges to the carrying capacity of resources and environment. The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed that China's economy has shifted from the stage of high-speed growth to the stage of high-quality development, and high-quality economic development is the economic development under the guidance of the new development concept for unbalanced and inadequate development. In accordance with this, China's new industrialization road also needs to shift from the strategy of high-speed industrialization to the strategy of high-quality industrialization. In view of the imbalance and inadequacy in the process of industrialization, we actively promoted the strategy of high-quality industrialization. Therefore, the "new infrastructure" needs to support the high-quality industrialization strategy, and carry out a series of construction decisions such as project selection, financing and investment, layout and location of new infrastructure in view of the imbalance and insufficiency of the above regional development, industrial development and green development. This means that "new infrastructure" is not only a short-term economic growth issue this year, but also a major issue of the "14th Five-Year Plan" and even China's comprehensive construction of a modern socialist power.

The new infrastructure should be the infrastructure of the new urbanization and support the high-quality urbanization strategy

Along with the process of industrialization, the process of urbanization will continue to advance, which is a universal law of modernization. With the deepening of China's new industrialization process, China has also begun to continuously promote new urbanization. In March 2014, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and The State Council issued the National New Urbanization Plan (2014-2020), which clearly pointed out that we should closely focus on comprehensively improving the quality of urbanization. We will follow a new urbanization path with Chinese characteristics that puts people first, synchronizes the four modernizations, optimizes layout, promotes ecological progress and inherits culture. Urban development requires a large number of inter-city and intra-city infrastructure, urbanization requires a large number of infrastructure construction, and new infrastructure should also meet the requirements of new urbanization. High-quality economic development requires the "four modernizations" development, that is, the deep integration of new industrialization and information technology, and new urbanization should interact with new industrialization, and urbanization should be coordinated with agricultural modernization. In a broader sense, the new infrastructure should be the infrastructure of the "four modernizations" development, not only to meet the requirements of the deep integration of new industrialization and information technology, but also to meet the requirements of benign interaction between urbanization and industrialization, and coordination with agricultural modernization.

Specifically, the requirements of new urbanization can be reflected in the construction of smart city, green city, forest city, sponge city, humanistic city, livable city and a series of types of modern city requirements, but also reflected in the requirements of urban agglomeration, metropolitan area construction, these requirements are also the goal of high-quality urbanization strategy. "New infrastructure" is to build infrastructure that meets the requirements of modern cities, urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas. To support the high-quality urbanization strategy, "new infrastructure" on the one hand, the layout of a new information, intelligent, green urban infrastructure, such as a new generation of intelligent information network, including F5G (gigabit fiber broadband), 5G, Internet of Things, cloud computing, edge computing, new Internet exchange center; On the other hand, the new generation of information technology and green technology is used to integrate with traditional urban infrastructure such as transportation, energy and water conservancy, municipal administration, environmental protection, and public health, and the traditional urban infrastructure is constructed by digitization, networking, intelligence, and green upgrading. For example, through the deep integration of information technology and traditional infrastructure, the formation of industrial Internet of Things, vehicle networking, power Internet of things, city perception facilities, intelligent municipal management, etc. The high-quality urbanization strategy not only includes the development of single towns, but also includes the development of urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas. The spatial structure of China's economic development is undergoing profound changes, and central cities and urban agglomerations are becoming the main spatial forms carrying the development factors. There is a great demand for infrastructure construction in urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas in the future, which includes high-speed, convenient, green and intelligent transportation infrastructure construction between cities in urban agglomerations, as well as transportation, information and other infrastructure and various public facilities between cities and suburbs in metropolitan areas, central cities and satellite cities. In short, supporting the new urbanization strategy will be a main battlefield for "new infrastructure".

The new infrastructure should be the infrastructure of a modernized economic system and adhere to supply-side structural reform

China's economy has shifted from high-speed growth to high-quality development, and the corresponding economic system also needs to shift from the traditional economic system to the modern economic system, and the construction of a modern economic system is an inevitable requirement for high-quality development. Modern economic system inevitably needs modern infrastructure, information, intelligent, green are the direction and requirements of modernization, therefore, the new infrastructure is modern infrastructure, constitute the infrastructure of the modern economic system. The key contradiction restricting the transformation of the traditional economic system into a modern economic system is that the quality of the supply side is not high. To build a modern economic system, we need to improve the quality of the supply of the economic system, and we need to eliminate ineffective supply and increase effective supply to better meet demand. Similarly, to build a modern economic system, it is necessary to carry out infrastructure innovation through "new infrastructure", so as to improve the quality of infrastructure supply, promote the development of digital economy, smart economy and green economy, and then promote economic transformation and upgrading, so as to achieve the goal of supply-side structural reform.

However, accelerating "new infrastructure" does not necessarily mean promoting supply-side structural reform. Since 2015, supply-side structural reform has become the main line of China's economic work. The supply-side structural reform aims to promote the adjustment of the supply structure and improve the quality of supply by reforming the system and mechanism, so as to better meet the demand and achieve steady and healthy economic development. The essential requirement of supply-side structural reform is to deepen market-oriented reform, improve the market economic system, and promote economic structural adjustment through a more perfect market system and mechanism, rather than using the government's hand to directly intervene in the supply structure and achieve economic structural adjustment. In other words, if the "new infrastructure" is only government investment, trying to improve the quality of economic supply through government investment, although it may greatly stimulate investment, expand domestic demand, and directly stimulate economic growth from the demand side, but because the market mechanism is not well used, it cannot be considered that the "new infrastructure" is to deepen the supply-side structural reform. The "new infrastructure" to adhere to the supply-side structural reform is to require "new infrastructure" investment and projects to be more the result of respecting market laws and market mechanisms, rather than the result of large-scale investment stimulus by the government through selective industrial policies. "New infrastructure" insists on supply-side structural reform, which is essentially a denial of the market's enthusiasm for large-scale economic stimulus through "new infrastructure". Although infrastructure is generally public in nature and requires a large amount of capital, which requires advanced planning and investment by the government, in order to obtain long-term economic efficiency, infrastructure construction must adhere to the principle of priority and full use of market mechanisms. In particular, new infrastructure is very different from traditional infrastructure, on the one hand, the market prospect is uncertain, the applicability of selective industrial policies is not high, on the other hand, in recent years, the market mechanism has promoted this field has had a good development achievements. Therefore, the "new infrastructure" needs to be guided by the Government, but it should not be overly directly involved. In particular, in the context of the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, the increasing pressure to achieve macroeconomic goals, and the enthusiasm of local governments for investment, it is all the more necessary to maintain a high degree of soberness.

In short, the central government proposed to accelerate the "new infrastructure", should be more from the perspective of promoting the high-quality development of our economy to understand and understand, and actively promote the "new infrastructure", can not forget the main line of the supply side structural reform, to give priority to and make full use of the market mechanism.