The challenges and opportunities of new infrastructure

China Well -off Network Exclusive Specialty

Wen | Panhelin

New infrastructure is by no means a "special effect drug" that stimulate economic growth and regulate inverse cycles during the economic downturn, but a "booster" that focuses on the adjustment of long -term economic structure and new and old kinetic energy conversion. Based on the current stage of technological development, only by recognizing the direction, evolution path and key areas of the future scientific and technological revolution, can we effectively grasp the new infrastructure investment air outlet and promote the target of new infrastructure.

Photo Source/HELLORF

Affected by the impact of the new coronary pneumonia's epidemic and the trend of international localization of globalization, as an important growth pole of future economic development, the development of the digital economy is the key to helping the dual -cycle development pattern. effect.

There is no doubt that new infrastructure can provide complete infrastructure support for the new economy, new technology and new industries in the future, but this is not only a short -term measure to cope with the current economic downlink pressure and stable economic growth. Opportunities for industrial revolution, building a smart society, and achieving the "two hundred years" goal to play a leading and basic role in the goal of "two hundred years". The development and deepening of new infrastructure can effectively empower the policy of digital economic strategy and high -quality economic development, and help China and digital companies to obtain and maintain core competition advantages. Therefore, compared with traditional infrastructure, the construction of new infrastructure that points to high -quality development will undoubtedly receive more attention.

New advantage of gathering

In December 2018, the Central Economic Work Conference proposed the concept of new infrastructure construction for the first time- "speed up 5G commercial pace and strengthen the construction of new infrastructure such as artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, and the Internet of Things." In essence, the new infrastructure has not changed the characteristics and standards of infrastructure, and still has general and public characteristics. Its "new" is mainly relative to traditional infrastructure. In short, the biggest feature of new infrastructure than old infrastructure is the advanced nature of technology. It not only has the basic and public characteristics of traditional infrastructure, but also presents the new infrastructure with digital technology as its core, the emerging field as the main body, the power of scientific and technological innovation, the virtual product as the main form, the platform as the main carrier, etc. Different from the characteristics of traditional infrastructure.

With the development of the digital economy, the understanding and understanding of new infrastructure in academia, news media, and capital markets gradually show a diversified trend. It is not difficult to find that the connotation of new infrastructure is constantly enriched and improved from the statement of the central and local meetings and related documents, showing a trend of dynamic changes. This dynamic connotation includes scientific and technological infrastructure such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and big data, but it is not limited to a specific physical facility level, but has good industrial ductility and tolerance.

From the perspective of macro -state development strategies, new infrastructure has broad development space and potential. The reason is that, on the one hand, although the construction of new infrastructure is different from traditional infrastructure mainly based on railway, highways, airports, and bridges, it still belongs to the investment demand in the macroeconomic theory traditional paradigm and currency in terms of attributes. As the supply side of the exchange medium. Therefore, it has not only the classic attributes of the steady growth of traditional infrastructure, but also can promote innovation and expand new consumption, manufacturing and new services. On the other hand, the four synchronization of industrialization, urbanization, marketization, and internationalization are fundamentally inseparable from "informatization". Although the development space of traditional infrastructure has narrowed and it is difficult to rise sharply, there is still a strong symbiotic relationship between the old and new infrastructure, even crossing each other.

At the mid -view level, digital technology changes are accelerating the deepening of global industrial division of labor and the conversion of domestic and old new kinetic energy, and the digital economy form with data resources as the key element is booming in China. A large amount of infrastructure that matches the digital economy must be completed by relying on new infrastructure containing advanced technology instead of traditional infrastructure.

Focusing on the micro perspective, the demand for the strong industrial cluster of the digital economy for the new infrastructure is the basic prerequisite for the new infrastructure as the "social pioneering capital". At present, my country has initially formed such a strong industrial cluster, such as relying on digital platforms. Of course, due to the areas and industries covered by the new infrastructure, and in the process of dynamic changes, the excavation of its potential and advantages will also be flexibly adjusted with social and economic development.

Seize new opportunities

Judging from the technical path characteristics of the advantages of new infrastructure and the development of the digital economy itself, with the deepening of the reform process, almost all the main body of the construction of new infrastructure projects shoulders the mission of based on national or regional development and deep cultivation. Economic development provides a rare opportunity.

The first is historical opportunities. At present, the digital economy is booming, and new infrastructure, as an infrastructure of digitalization and digital industrialization, has ushered in historic development opportunities. my country's huge market size provides sufficient market space for the construction of the new development pattern of the "dual cycle", but also provides a large amount of large data resources and broad application scenarios for the development of the digital economy. Specifically, the huge investment scale and industrial synergy contained in the new infrastructure provides unprecedented opportunities for the strength and toughness of the Chinese economy, and also provide favorable conditions for the goal of achieving the goal of independent innovation of key technologies and key products. Therefore, the planning and construction of new infrastructure should not only be settled in short -term economic stimuli, but should be used as a leading work and important support for building a smart society and achieving the second century -old goal. In the context of the limited growth rate of traditional infrastructure expansion, large -scale new infrastructure construction will be the long -term direction of the future. In this process, the effect of the investment in new infrastructure not only depends on the situation of "hard base construction", but also the implementation effect of "soft infrastructure" such as operating systems and data protection. The second is policy opportunities. At present, my country's new infrastructure construction has been fully rolled out, and practical and policies are advancing. A good policy environment helps improve the long -term supply quality and service efficiency of new infrastructure. Regardless of the development trend or development potential, the digital economy has completed a leap of agricultural and industrial economy, becoming the current mainstream economic form. Putting new infrastructure to such an important economic strategy is by no means a tide to deal with the right measures of the economic decline. Judging from the recent measures and releases issued by the central bank, the National Development and Reform Commission and other ministries and commissions, the signal of the central ministries and commissions to implement the steady growth policy is very clear. The new infrastructure has become an important starting point for the central and local economy, and has received great attention in the development strategy and specific actions. It has specific arrangements in the policy measures of the stable economy issued by the country and the local area. A rare window period.

The third is industrial opportunities. The principle of Kanes's investment multiplication shows that the increase in investment will play a multiplication role, that is, a chain reaction in various departments of the national economy, which is also constantly confirmed in practice. Since the first industrial revolution, the wave of technological revolution has grown in collaborative outbreaks of multiple departments, rather than a single breakthrough in individual products and departments. In reality, since the deployment of digital new infrastructure policies, the associated industries have also entered a period of rapid development. With the continuous deepening of the digitalization process, the specific living scenes and business scenarios are continuously extending, which has a huge driving role in the development of economy and industry. Taking the field of 5G as an example, according to the calculation of the China Information and Communication Research Institute, it is expected that the direct investment of 5G network construction in my country will reach 1.7 trillion yuan by 2025, which will drive upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and the application of various industries will exceed 3.5 trillion yuan. Yuan. It is estimated that by 2025, 5G commercial use will bring more than 8 trillion yuan of economic consumption and more than 3 million jobs.

Welcome to the new challenge

Although the new infrastructure has strong growth potential in the future economic development process, it is undeniable that new infrastructure also faces a series of external environment constraints. As new infrastructure is widely concerned and hotly discussed, new infrastructure needs to face up and solve problems in terms of investment efficiency, sustainability, and market -oriented investment decision -making, and make top -level design support in advance.

First of all, we must pay attention to grasping the quality of investment and improve investment efficiency. Different from the definition goals and technical paths facing the traditional infrastructure surpassing stage, the construction of new infrastructure construction adopts emerging digital technologies on a large scale. Its service object is also based on digital technology. Higher uncertainty. Therefore, compared with companies that are directly involved in market competition and technological innovation, the government's uncertainty of cutting -edge technology is even more sensitive. In terms of structure, there are more companies investing in new infrastructure application layers, while the investment basic layers are less, and there are problems with out -of -balance investment and financing funds and unreasonable structures. Therefore, the investment of new infrastructure is different from the traditional road repair bridge. It is difficult for local government departments to lack technical experience and information advantages to conduct effective information screening and evaluation, which is easy to reduce investment efficiency.

On the other hand, the infrastructure has a strong positive and external nature. Generally, the scale of investment is huge, the investment cycle is long, and often involves the coordination and complementary investment of multiple departments. The rapid development of China's digital economy also follows this logic. The overall planning of new infrastructure investment progress to prevent low -efficiency repetitive construction of old roads is the key to improving investment efficiency to avoid overcapacity and extrusion effects. In this process, the government needs to eliminate the tendency to ignore the quality of the weight, especially the new infrastructure that highlights the field of people's livelihood and can drive domestic demand. In addition, local governments need to "adapt to local conditions" and "policies for the city" to consider regional differences.

Secondly, we must be alert to the risk of investment debt and enhance the function of hematopoietic making. Although the new infrastructure has the characteristics of high -tech, high risk, and high income, it is similar to investment in traditional infrastructure and is also facing strong financing constraints. If the technical route chooses to invest accidentally, it may fall into the debt trap. In the past implementation process of traditional infrastructure investment in my country, in the macro background of increasing economic downlink pressure, the traditional infrastructure construction model led by government financial funds does not have sustainability.

Under the traditional institutional mechanism, the excessive expansion of infrastructure construction cannot be avoided. Local governments are disorderly and large -scale debt budgets have caused overcapacity and debt risk. Since investment in new infrastructure is a "roundabout production" with longer commercial cycles, before the new infrastructure investment projects form a clear profit model and a good commercial closed loop, simple monetary capital investment is likely to induce inflation or promote economic bubbles. In this regard, the government must establish a rational understanding of new infrastructure, follow objective laws, and gradually advance new infrastructure. Overcoming the tendency of short -term and utilitarianization, avoiding overcapacity, waste of resources, and blindness to increase their debt burden. On the other hand, compared with traditional infrastructure, the new infrastructure depreciation period may directly lead to accelerating the update rate of new infrastructure. Although advanced infrastructure construction is important for the development of the economy and society, if the new infrastructure cannot play a role in time, it will not only consume huge amounts of funds, but also cause the embarrassing situation of "unused and backward" in the new infrastructure. In addition, pay attention to optimizing the allocation of market resources and expanding financing channels. The new infrastructure includes a large number of emerging technologies and emerging industries. The supporting policies such as finance and finance of traditional infrastructure are difficult to adapt. Therefore, the investment of new infrastructure should be an open cooperative ecosystem of "complementary advantages, resource sharing, and mutual benefit". In this process, the relationship between the government and the market should be dealt with, the market is willing to do and be good at the market, and gradually reduces the level of direct intervention of government departments. As a representative of the will of the state, state -owned enterprises have an irreplaceable role in the construction of large -scale infrastructure. However, in terms of the research and development and application of specific technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and 5G ability. In the next step, the government needs to gradually relax and control, moderate market competition, formulate competitive neutral economic development policies, eliminate hidden obstacles to private enterprises entering new infrastructure investment, and adopt various policies and measures including tax reduction and financing offers to motivate incentives A variety of market subjects, maximize the participation of social resources and private capital. This will help mobilize more resources, accelerate the construction progress of new infrastructure, and drive and improve the relevant industrial chain. In addition, although new infrastructure investment rely on its own strength, fundamental guarantee for its own technical level, and taking the road of independent development, but at the same time, it cannot exclude the introduction of advanced production technology abroad. In some new infrastructure fields Essence

What needs to be emphasized again is that the new infrastructure is by no means a "special effect medicine" that stimulate economic growth and regulate economic growth during the economic downturn, but to focus on the "booster" of long -term economic structure adjustment and new and old kinetic energy conversion. Based on the current stage of technological development, only by recognizing the direction, evolution path and key areas of the future scientific and technological revolution, can we effectively grasp the new infrastructure investment air outlet and promote the target of new infrastructure. Of course, in a sense, compared with the investment in the investment air, it is also important to adapt to the construction and improvement of the new economy. Through institutional innovation, it can not only make the investment of new infrastructure more efficient, but also solve the various institutional bottlenecks in the development of new infrastructure, thereby effectively promoting the development of new infrastructure and even improving the development efficiency of the entire digital economy.

(The author is the co -director and researcher of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of Zhejiang University International Coalition Business School)

("Well -off" · China Well -off Exclusive Draft)

This article was published in "Well -off" in late July 2022

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