Precise measures were taken for the construction of urban infrastructure in the 14th Five-Year Plan

We will accelerate efforts to shore up weak areas in infrastructure

The plan Outlines the blueprint for urban infrastructure construction across the country in 2025 and 2035.

-- By 2025, the green transformation of urban construction methods, production and lifestyle will have achieved remarkable results, the level of infrastructure systematization, operational efficiency and risk prevention capacity will be significantly improved, "urban diseases" in megacities will be effectively alleviated, infrastructure operation will be more efficient, the quality of infrastructure in large and medium-sized cities will be significantly improved, and weaknesses in infrastructure in small and medium-sized cities will be accelerated.

-- By 2035, a comprehensive, efficient, practical, smart, green, safe and reliable modern urban infrastructure system will be completed, green transformation will be basically realized in construction methods, and the overall quality, operational efficiency and service management of facilities will reach the international advanced level.

In fact, from the "Key tasks of New urbanization and urban and rural Integration Development in 2022" to the "Opinions on Promoting urbanization construction with county seats as an important carrier", and then to the "14th Five-Year Plan" Implementation Plan for New Urbanization, a number of heavy policy documents this year have released signals for accelerating infrastructure construction.

In addition, many places have listed infrastructure construction tasks. Shandong Province proposed construction from the road system, water system, energy system, sanitation system, landscaping system and other six aspects, Zhejiang Province plans to build 1,200 kilometers of urban gas pipe network in 2022, complete the renovation of no less than 600 old residential areas, Anhui Province proposed this year and next year strive to start construction of 100 kilometers of urban underground integrated pipe corridor. Yunnan province will strengthen the construction of urban flood control and drainage, sewage and garbage collection and treatment systems, and start the renovation of 1,500 old urban communities.

What can infrastructure bring to a city? Pan Helin, co-director and researcher of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of Zhejiang University International Business School, said in an interview with China City News reporter that urban infrastructure construction can improve the quality of people's lives, improve the urban living environment, and better promote human-centered urbanization. It can effectively promote the implementation of scientific and technological innovation achievements and accelerate the construction of digital government and smart cities; It can also promote the formation of effective investment, stimulate employment and stabilize the economy.

Smart, green into the key words

What are the characteristics of urban infrastructure construction during the 14th Five-Year Plan period?

Pan and Lin analysis, on the one hand from the traditional urban infrastructure construction to new urban infrastructure construction. Urban infrastructure construction has shifted from the original railways and roads to light rail, information network, intelligence, energy network, intelligent transportation and other fields. On the other hand, from the big and full to make up for the shortcomings. In the past, urban infrastructure construction was a process from scratch, while the "14th Five-Year Plan" period was a process from scratch to excellent, mainly to make up for shortcomings.

"At the same time, urban infrastructure construction is more closely integrated with new technologies and new products." The tasks related to urban infrastructure construction are not only to serve, but also to create scenarios suitable for new applications, promote emerging industries, such as carrying out demonstration applications of collaborative comprehensive scenarios in vehicle cities, and strengthen the construction of facilities such as charging and replacing, gas filling and hydrogenation of new energy vehicles." Pan and Lin said.

In view of the above characteristics, Pan Helin suggested that on the one hand, the future urban infrastructure construction should focus on the pain points of citizens' life and work, strengthen and optimize the supply of urban infrastructure, such as increasing the supply of public transportation such as light rail in the control of urban congestion; On the other hand, we should start from the city-owned industries and drive the development of local technology enterprises.

It is worth noting that smart and green have become the key words of urban infrastructure construction in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. The reporters of China City Daily searched the full text of "Planning" with the keywords of "smart" and "green", and the frequency was 47 times and 31 times.

Taking the keyword "smart" as an example, the "Plan" takes the intelligent construction of urban infrastructure as one of the key tasks, including the construction and renovation of intelligent urban infrastructure, promoting the construction of a new generation of information and communication infrastructure, carrying out the demonstration application of vehicle city collaborative comprehensive scenarios, and accelerating the construction of smart communities.

We will promote the sound development of public infrastructure REITs

Industry insiders believe that urban infrastructure construction has the characteristics of a large amount of capital investment and a long construction period, which requires medium - and long-term funding to provide support.

It is expected that in the next few years, with the advancement of urbanization, China's urban infrastructure construction will continue to maintain a large scale of investment. How to timely and effectively solve the problem of financing construction will be a long-term problem faced by urban infrastructure construction.

Pan Helin believes that in the past few years, China has adopted mixed ownership and PPP to increase infrastructure supply, and these methods have indeed reduced the cost of urban infrastructure construction by local governments. However, it is also necessary to see that whether it is mixed ownership or PPP, the final investment needs to be recovered and cannot reflect the public nature. Therefore, urban infrastructure should distinguish between profitability and public. Public infrastructure should be government-led investment, and profitable public facilities can be built through PPP and mixed ownership.

The "Plan" proposes to distinguish the operational and non-operational attributes of relevant construction projects, establish a cooperation mechanism for risk sharing and benefit sharing between the government and social capital, and adopt various forms to promote public-private capital cooperation (PPP) in a standardized and orderly manner. We will promote the healthy development of real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the infrastructure sector and revitalize existing assets in urban infrastructure.

Infrastructure REITs are the hot market in recent years. Since the debut of the first nine public REITs in June 2021, a total of 14 have been listed successively, involving industrial parks, warehousing and logistics, highways and other infrastructure, raising a total of 54.1 billion yuan.

In the view of Deng Haiqing, chief economist of AVIC Fund, infrastructure public REITs have innovated financing channels, solved the problem of "where does the money for infrastructure investment come from", and provided a sustainable source of funds for infrastructure investment.