SCIO briefing on China's economy in H1
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E-mail China.org.cn, July 16, 2019
Market News International:
You just said the economic operation in the second half of the year has strong support. There is still a lot of room for policies. Can you give us a more detailed outlook on policy orientation around the real estate industry and infrastructure industry? For example, what change will there be for the state's attitude toward real estate investment, and what direction will the local governments turn to in terms of infrastructure investment? Thank you.
Mao Shengyong:
Thank you for your question. When it comes to investment, we say that it has three major components: first, manufacturing investment, second, infrastructure investment, and third, real estate investment. Real estate investment has maintained relatively rapid growth since last year, with a growth rate of about 10%. It has slightly declined from January to June, at 10.9%. Infrastructure investment growth has accelerated slightly from January to June, faster than that from January to May. Manufacturing investment growth has accelerated slightly in the past two months. All the above are the basic performances of the three major investments in recent months.
Speaking of real estate, from the statistics I just released, including the situation about housing prices released by the National Bureau of Statistics today at 9:30 am, we put together indicators of real estate aspects including housing prices, real estate investment, real estate sales, construction area, land transactions, etc., and examined them comprehensively and found that the current real estate market is still running smoothly. This is the first point. Second, for the next stage, on one hand, urbanization is still advancing, and there are still rigid and improvement demands from buyers. On the other hand, the concept of "houses are for living in, not for speculation" is more and more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Then we emphasize "particular policies for particular cities" and stress the main responsibility of the city government. With the two factors combined, stable land prices, stable housing prices and stable expectations can be achieved for the real estate market in the next stage. Under such circumstances, real estate investment will change radically.
From the perspective of infrastructure investment, I personally understand that our policy effects will continue to be exerted, including the strengthened issuance of special bonds. The introduction of some new measures has indeed accelerated the process of approvals for major projects that can complement shortcomings and provide strong stamina. In the next phase, these projects will gradually come to fruition, so infrastructure investment should rebound at a low level as expected. Thank you.
