To promote new infrastructure, ecological and environmental infrastructure must not be limited

In March 2020, the CPC Central Committee proposed to accelerate the construction of new infrastructure (referred to as "new infrastructure"), and various departments and localities launched a new round of infrastructure investment plans, while making up for the shortcomings of traditional infrastructure such as railways, roads, airports, etc. It has accelerated the construction of new infrastructure in 5G base stations, ultra-high voltage, intercity high-speed railways and urban rail transit, new energy vehicle charging piles, big data centers, artificial intelligence, industrial Internet and other fields.

Compared with traditional infrastructure construction, the new infrastructure is richer in connotation and covers a wider range, and can better promote the transformation and upgrading of China's economy. Here, the author suggests that the construction of ecological and environmental infrastructure should also be included in the new infrastructure system, taking advantage of the situation to promote the greening of the new infrastructure, further support the beautiful China and the construction of ecological civilization, so as to better balance the high-quality economic and social development and the high-level protection of the ecological environment.

1. Why include ecological infrastructure in the new infrastructure

Compared with the traditional infrastructure, the new infrastructure is the systematized, intelligent and green social public capital necessary to support the new development mode in the future period, so the ecological environment infrastructure should be included in it.

First of all, infrastructure, including transportation, electricity, communications, water supply and sewage, water conservancy, ecological environment and other basic industries and public utilities, not only used to support production, but also used to support life (such as water supply) and ecology (such as solid waste treatment and sewage treatment), has the characteristics of public goods and quasi-public goods, must be ahead of those private direct production investment with quick returns. It forms the basic support for economic and social development. Ecological and environmental infrastructure belongs to this category.

Secondly, the concept of green development provides a basis for incorporating ecological and environmental infrastructure into new infrastructure. With high-quality economic development, the new infrastructure should also have intelligent, digital and green characteristics. From the perspective of the requirements of the concept of green development, we should coordinate the development of traditional and new infrastructure, and build an intensive, efficient, economical, intelligent, green, safe and reliable modern infrastructure system. In the new infrastructure of ecological environment, including the green transformation of traditional infrastructure (such as new energy vehicle charging pile), intelligent and digital transformation (such as domestic waste transfer system based on Internet of Things technology).

Thirdly, ecological and environmental infrastructure is an important support for sustainable development. In the author's opinion, the ninth goal of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015 highlights the value of ecological and environmental infrastructure, including the construction of high-quality, reliable environmental infrastructure that can withstand ecological and environmental disasters, so as to avoid serious constraints caused by disasters to economic and social development. To promote sustainable industrialization and improve the efficiency of resource and energy use, it is necessary to adopt more green, low-carbon, clean and circular production processes, build green industrial infrastructure and promote the greening of infrastructure.

2. Ecological and environmental infrastructure is the focus of shoring up weak spots in the near and medium term

Like transportation, information and other infrastructure, ecological and environmental infrastructure is also the basic support for sustainable economic and social development. Ecological and environmental infrastructure provides basic support and services for production and life, can improve the green competitiveness of social development and sustainable development capacity, and make private investment more willing and efficient. Especially in the current era of high-quality development, ecological and environmental infrastructure is the cornerstone of beautiful China and the construction of ecological civilization, and has direct and extensive social, environmental and economic benefits. According to estimates, without considering the indirect pull effect, in the past ten years, the direct pull coefficient of environmental protection investment on environmental protection industry is 0.9. According to the ecological environment target of 2035, China's ecological environment infrastructure investment is expected to take at least 15 years to make up for the shortcomings, in order to have the pulling effect of long-term fixed asset investment plus operation and maintenance.

It is important to emphasize that the ecological environment and sustainable development will play an increasingly important role in future investment decisions. Infrastructure construction consumes a lot of capital, resources, environment, energy, manpower and other factors, if excessive or too advanced, it will bring high cost, low utilization rate, overcapacity and other negative effects. However, ecological and environmental infrastructure is strong in public welfare and has always been in a state of serious shortage of supply, which should be the focus of infrastructure in the near and medium term to make up for weak spots.

At present, in China's new infrastructure investment plan, the share of ecological environmental infrastructure is small, and the seven key areas of new infrastructure mentioned by the state are not listed, except for new energy charging piles, other typical ecological environmental infrastructure. In order to implement the new infrastructure development strategy, in the publicly announced key project investment plans of the provinces in 2020, the proportion of ecological environmental infrastructure increased from 2.6% in 2019 to 6.9% in February 2020. Despite the increase of 4.3 percentage points, the share is still low.

At the same time, the return on investment mechanism of ecological and environmental infrastructure remains to be improved. At present, the construction of ecological environmental infrastructure is still dominated by government investment, the charging mechanism is not perfect, and the indirect pulling effect on economic growth is not obvious or difficult to identify. The systematic and scientific nature of project planning needs to be improved, supporting policies such as feasibility study, environmental assessment, energy assessment, land pre-examination, and planning land permission lag behind, and the preliminary reserve work of the project is insufficient, resulting in poor landing performance, and it is difficult to attract social capital investment.

3. Enhance the role of ecological and environmental infrastructure in driving economic growth

To practice the concept of ecological civilization and promote high-quality economic development, ecological and environmental infrastructure construction should be incorporated into the new infrastructure system, and local governments should be guided to increase the share of ecological and environmental infrastructure in the implementation of projects. To this end, the author proposes to implement it from the aspects of financing, enhancing economic impetus, and reserve projects:

We will increase the proportion of investment in ecological and environmental infrastructure in new infrastructure investment. Relevant data show that in 2018, the national general public budget spent about 2.09 trillion yuan on major infrastructure projects, of which urban and rural community public facilities, low-income housing projects, transportation facilities, pollution prevention and control, and water conservancy projects accounted for 49.1%, 17.7%, 12.0%, 11.7%, and 9.5%, respectively. It is necessary to strengthen infrastructure investment toward ecological and environmental infrastructure, and reserve more development space for the seriously lagging supply of ecological and environmental infrastructure. Given that fiscal infrastructure investment is mainly achieved by issuing government bonds, it is recommended that local governments, when issuing general bonds and special bonds, ensure a substantial increase in investment in ecological infrastructure such as domestic sewage and solid waste treatment.

We will enhance the role of ecological and environmental infrastructure in driving economic growth. A beautiful ecological environment can play an important role in attracting people to settle down and buy homes, and strengthening cultural tourism. When planning investment projects and PPP projects, local governments can bundle the construction of ecological environmental infrastructure and development projects, so that the environmental benefits generated by ecological infrastructure projects can win economic spillover benefits for development projects, and the development projects can pay the cost of ecological infrastructure projects to maximize the overall benefits. At the same time, it is suggested to strengthen the research work on ecological environmental infrastructure and improve the level of decision-making, planning and implementation.

We will accelerate the reserve of ecological and environmental infrastructure projects. Under the promotion of the new infrastructure policy, the departments and areas with a good reserve foundation should have relatively more projects and funds implemented. In order to meet the urgent needs of ecological and environmental infrastructure to make up for weaknesses, it is recommended that relevant administrative departments guide local governments to formulate ecological and environmental infrastructure construction and investment and financing plans in accordance with national and regional ecological and environmental protection plans, with domestic sewage and solid waste disposal as the focus, and clarify the annual project implementation list and financing plan in the past five years. Do a good job in advance of the preliminary work of the project to be implemented in the past two years, and reserve the preliminary preparation costs, organize experts to carry out scientific demonstration, and win valuable time and opportunities for the rapid and good promotion of ecological environmental infrastructure construction.