China Focus: Belt and Road initiatives to spur infrastructure investment

Stockholm, May 8 (Greenpost) — The “One Belt and One Road” initiatives, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives, are very likely to boost physical infrastructure investment and facilitate the growth in the construction sector in China, according to market observers.
The Belt and Road initiatives are a Chinese framework for connecting economies in Asia Pacific and Europe.
Qiu Bo, an analyst at Guosen Securities Co., Ltd., said 2015 will be a year of infrastructure as Chinese government is now actively pushing ahead with its Belt and Road initiatives. The analyst added that the investment in infrastructure has become an important driving force behind domestic economic growth amid the domestic downturn.
According to market analysts, China’s infrastructure projects mainly include housing renovation projects in shanty towns, urban underground pipeline network construction, railways and roads construction in central and western regions, waterway projects in the inland areas, oil-and-gas pipelines construction, electric power equipment, and environmental protection projects.
China Galaxy Securities’ researcher Bao Furong said there is a great opportunity for infrastructure-related companies to grow in the year. He also believed the central bank’s latest interest rate cuts could help reduce financing costs for construction enterprises as they are highly indebted at the moment, adding that steel-and-rail-related companies listed in China will benefit most from the lower rates.
The People’s Bank of China, the central bank, has cut the benchmark interest rates twice since November 2014, and lowered the reserve requirement ratio twice in less than three months since the start of this year.
According to calculations by Shenwan Hongyuan Securities Co., Ltd., construction companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses reported an 11.3 percent growth in net profits in the first quarter of the year, quicker than a 1.4 percent growth pace for the fourth quarter of 2014.
As it appears from publicly disclosed financial reports, construction sector is rebounding from recession. Sun Peng, a researcher at Sinolink Securities Co., Ltd, predicted construction companies will see a further pickup in the year with massive new orders flooding into them.
Under such circumstances, market observers also said that belt and road initiatives may bring big profit opportunity for private investors who participate in the public-private partnership (PPP), a new model of developing public service projects that is funded and operated through cooperation between government and private sector companies. Enditem

Source Xinhua

Editor Xuefei Chen Axelsson