Private capital entry to be opened, such as private airport, basic telecom operation, oil gas exploration & development, and etc.
165 major engineering projects determined in the “13th Five-Year Plan” are related to overall situation of economic & social development. Implementing these projects is a key point to lead and incent economic & social development during the period of “13th Five-Year Plan”.
These projects also provide a platform for social capital, private ones in particular, to play their role, Hu Zucai, vice director of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) indicated in the press conference on August 23. Therefore, the governments will further clear away the policy obstacles, allow private investments’ entry into market and the said projects, and open the market to the greatest extent.
Fields, including private airport and oil gas exploration, to open
The mentioned 165 projects to be specified in 23 special columns of the “13th Five-Year Plan” outline are drives for economic & social development, Hu said. Boosting their implementation will expand effective investment, enhance effective demands, but also increase effective supply, incent drives’ transfer, and optimize the structure.
Taking major transportation construction project as example, the “13th Five-Year Plan” outline proposes that operational express railway length should be 30,000 km, with about 30,000 km for newly constructed or rebuilt highway, over 50 newly added civil transportation airport, and around 3,000 km for newly added urban railway system. These projects will play a significant role in expanding effective investment.
“Their smooth implementation also requires social efforts of all aspects, which cannot be successful without widely involved social capital; it also needs to fully incent the activity and creativity of all market players to form a powerful drive for implementing the said outline.” It is the most important to open the market entry to an extreme, so that to create a fair market, especially that private investment should be provided with the same investment environment as that for state-owned ones, Hu mentioned.
It learnt that the State Council has clearly required related authorities to establish a negative list for market entry. In particular, fields including private airport, basic telecom operation, oil gas exploration and others should be further opened to remove market obstacles for infrastructure and public facilities; more effective measures should be taken for people’s livelihood industries, such as medical treatment, pension, education and etc., to allow fair involvement of private investment.
Hu said: “It is still necessary to solve the financing difficulties and high costs of private investment, and innovate the participation ways of private investment. Those suitable to purchase services should buy the services as possible as they can to make the social capital play its role; those proper for PPP mode should also be carried out in this way to widely attract social capital.”
The NDRC recently held a special meeting to discuss how to attract social investment and popularize the related experience. “We have approved urban railway system plans for 42 cities, and will create more measures to attract social capital to rapidly and smoothly enter into these major engineering projects,” said Hu.
Greater efforts to be made for major engineering projects
The 165 projects mentioned above can bring in massive opportunities for private capital, but are also closely related to the overall situation, according to Hu. Therefore, the NDRC will further intensify the promotion strength for major engineering projects, detail the implementation schemes, and make greater efforts for preparation at early stage.
NDRC previously issued Opinions on Accelerating Implementation of Major Engineering Projects in “13th Five-Year Plan” Outline, proposing detailed deployments for their implementation. Now, NDRC and related authorities have drafted Opinions on Improving Implementation Mechanism of “13th Five-Year Plan” Outline, which has been reported to the central government and State Council, so as to use the mechanism to guarantee the real implementation of the 5-yr plan.
Theoretically, the project proposals will not be reviewed and approved again, while their feasibility study reports will be directly reviewed, to speed up their progress, Hu revealed.
He said: “Local governments and authorities should try their best to simplify the review & approval procedure for these projects in this procedure, and greatly shorten the processing period. Construction conditions should be guaranteed for those having been approved but not started construction, so that they can start the construction on time. Follow-up services should be conducted for those having started construction, and problems should be solved timely to greatly push the implementation progress.”
Additionally, “13th Five-Year Plan” outline is a top design, with specialized and local planning supporting this outline. “All specialized and local plans are required to detail these 165 major projects; the State Council has determined 22 key specialized plans which will be comprehensively issued within this year”, Hu pointed out.
Translated by Jelly
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