China Business Network:
Statistics show that, overall, investment in the first three quarters slowed down, with the growth rate of infrastructure investment only 3.3 percent. Will the low speed of increase become the new normal in infrastructure investment? How to analyze this trend? In addition, private investment has maintained good momentum, but we notice the contradiction in private financing is aggravated this year. Will this affect the overall growth rate of private investment in the future?
Mao Shengyong:
You have asked two questions. The first is about infrastructure investment. During the first three quarters, the growth rate of fixed assets investment was 0.1 percentage points higher than the level achieved from January to August. As for its structure, the growth rate of manufacturing investment is accelerating and that in the real estate sector has become a bit slower, yet is still around 10 percent. The increase rate of infrastructure investment fell further to 3.3 percent; however, if we view it consecutively, the range of falls is narrowing. With the efforts made to keep employment, the financial sector, foreign trade, foreign and domestic investments and expectations stable, a larger number of key projects are advancing steadily and infrastructure investment is expected to be more stable.
Your second question concerns the growth of private investment, which has gone generally well this year. It has witnessed a cumulative growth rate of over eight percent, a relatively high rate, as most of the private investment has flowed into manufacturing and real estate, both sectors where around 70 percent of capital comes from this source. Investment in manufacturing grew faster, while real estate saw a cumulative growth rate of about 10 percent. Therefore, private investment has been able to maintain good momentum.
