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The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, on Monday unveiled measures to boost private investment as part of efforts to bolster the sluggish economic recovery.
China will stimulate the vitality of private investment and encourage private investment into the country’s major infrastructure projects and supply chain and industry chain projects, the NDRC said in a statement on Monday.
The NDRC will release a list of sectors ranging from transport, water, clean energy, new infrastructure to advanced manufacturing and modern agriculture for private investors to participate in, it said, adding that more specific details on this will be provided soon.
The authority will step up the efforts to encourage more qualified private capital-invested projects to issue infrastructure REITs to promote asset diversification, further expand financing channels for private investment and lower private companies’ debt-to-asset ratio, it said.
Significance of private investment should be fully recognised and the NDRC will strive to keep the proportion of private fixed-asset investment among all investment at a “reasonable level,” it said.
The NDRC will also strengthen financial support for private-invested projects and a special fund from central government budget will be set up to give annual support for 20 cities with high private investment growth and strong policy implementation, it said.
The NDRC is currently working on a list of projects fro private investment which will be sent to the banks and guide the banks to increase their lending for private investment, Luo Guosan, head of the department of investment of the NDRC.Â
The NDRC had announced earlier this month that it would establish a pilot investment and lending cooperation mechanism with the China Development Bank, Agricultural Development Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank and CITIC Bank to help promote private investment and expand effective investment.
The latest move comes as Chinese authorities last week pledged to step up the support for the private sector.
The State Council, the country’s cabinet, last week published a set of policy guidelines aimed at stepping up support for private businesses in an effort to bolster economic recovery.
The NDRC last week held a meeting with private companies, the third such meeting within a month, to learn about their business situation and difficulties and vowed to address their concerns.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange recently held a symposium on supporting private companies’ bond issuance and listened to their opinions and suggestions on optimizing the mechanism for supporting their’bond issuance and guiding financial sources to precisely support the private companies’ development.