Explainer | What are China’s major infrastructure projects in an economically fraught 2022?
- From large-scale transport and water-conservancy projects to renewable energy efforts, China is splashing out trillions of yuan on critical infrastructure
- Such projects are expected to give China a much-needed economic boost as it struggles to cope with the effects of an often-crippling zero-Covid policy
Turbulent times are seeing Beijing dust off its old playbook that calls for ramping up infrastructure investments across the country, in an industrious bid to offset damage to the world’s second-largest economy by ongoing coronavirus restrictions and a faltering property sector.
Indeed, the pace of infrastructure investment continues to accelerate. Year-over-year growth was 8.6 per cent in the first nine months of 2022, or 0.3 percentage points higher than during the first eight months.
Hundreds of billions of yuan are being spent. But what is all that money going toward?
Water Conservancy
China’s Ministry of Water Resources said that 703.6 billion yuan (US$98 billion) was invested in water-conservancy infrastructure projects during the first eight months of 2022 – an increase of 63.9 per cent over the same period in 2021.
In total, the ministry said that construction had begun on more than 19,000 water-conservancy projects, of which 31 were considered “major” projects.
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China launches mega US$10 billion canal project in a bid to help its economy
China’s ambitious South-North Water Transfer Project – an underground network of water tunnels that relocates water from the Yangtze River to northern China – kicked off construction of a new central line in July.
