The 14th Five-Year Plan Outline makes new infrastructure construction a priority for expanding investment space. Recently, multiple ministries have spoken out, including accelerating the introduction of the 14th Five-Year Plan for new infrastructure construction and increasing investment according to the principle of moderate advancement. Localities are also actively leveraging major projects to drive development. According to incomplete statistics by the reporter, nearly 20 provinces and municipalities including Beijing, Tianjin, Hubei, Zhejiang, and Anhui have issued local 14th Five-Year Plan outlines, clarifying 5G construction goals for the next five years and accelerating the construction of a batch of major projects such as big data centers and industrial internet. According to statistics from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), catalyzed by multiple policy dividends, investment related to new infrastructure during the 14th Five-Year Plan period is expected to exceed 10 trillion yuan.

　　Multiple ministries are intensively planning a new round of support measures for new infrastructure construction. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) stated that this year it will issue the 14th Five-Year Plan for new infrastructure construction, expand 5G applications, and accelerate the construction of industrial internet and data centers. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) proposed to increase investment according to the principles of demand-driven, systematic layout, and moderate advancement, continue to promote the construction of 5G, industrial internet, and data centers, and build high-speed, mobile, secure, and ubiquitous new infrastructure. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) recently proposed to accelerate the optimization of state-owned capital layout and industrial structure adjustment, focus development on the real economy, steadily advance strategic restructuring and professional integration, and increase investment in new infrastructure.

　　Local plans are also being expedited. According to incomplete statistics by the reporter, nearly 20 provinces and municipalities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing, Sichuan, Hubei, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui have issued local 14th Five-Year Plan outlines, planning major new infrastructure projects and further clarifying 5G construction goals for the next five years, with numbers ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. For example, the Hubei Province 14th Five-Year Plan outline proposes to build more than 130,000 5G base stations. Zhejiang proposes that by 2025, the province will have built 200,000 5G base stations, achieving 5G network coverage in areas above the administrative village level and on major transportation routes such as expressways and high-speed railways within the province.

　　Many places are launching a new batch of major projects intensively, and accelerating new infrastructure construction is becoming an important option for expanding effective investment. On April 6, Henan issued the 2021 5G project list, totaling 559 projects with a total investment of over 58 billion yuan. Hunan recently released the list of 100 landmark projects for "digital new infrastructure" in 2021, with a total investment of 21.606 billion yuan. The investment for a single project is basically above 20 million yuan, including 25 projects above 100 million yuan, 5 projects above 1 billion yuan, and 2 projects above 3 billion yuan. Guangzhou issued the 2021 "new infrastructure" plan for the science and innovation field, with the first batch of investment at 168.1 billion yuan, specifying that this year it will promote the construction of supercomputing centers, data centers, and cloud computing centers.

　　At the same time, a batch of key projects in key areas such as industrial internet and big data centers have also been concentratedly released. Beijing proposes to implement a new infrastructure support action, accelerate the construction of the national top-level node for industrial internet identification resolution and the national industrial internet big data center, and build data intelligence infrastructure such as artificial intelligence ultra-high-speed computing centers, integrated big data platforms, and blockchain common platforms. Anhui proposes to implement the "New Infrastructure+" action, build more than 200 industrial internet platforms by 2025, and accelerate the construction of key projects such as the Hefei Huayun Xinchuang Cloud Data Center, Huaibei Big Data Center, and Fuyang Big Data Center.

　　In the industry's view, driven by a series of favorable policies, new infrastructure will bring large-scale and long-term new effective investment in the next five years. A reporter from the Economic Information Daily learned from CAICT that new infrastructure investment in 2021 is expected to be about 1.78 trillion yuan, and the total investment during the entire 14th Five-Year Plan period is expected to be about 10.53 trillion yuan.

　　"As an important support for high-end, intelligent, and green industrial development, new infrastructure has huge investment demand under the current intelligent upgrade and the strategic goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality," said Fan Meng, deputy director of the Industrial Investment Research Office of the Planning Institute of the China Center for Information Industry Development, in an interview with the Economic Information Daily. New infrastructure serving the industrial sector is expected to be the focus of investment deployment, including network infrastructure such as 5G, IoT, and industrial internet; and computing infrastructure such as cloud computing, data centers, and intelligent computing centers.

　　Zhang Yunyong, general manager of the Product Center of China Unicom, also told the reporter that information infrastructure such as 5G and optical fiber networks will still be the focus of deployment. On the one hand, there will be large-scale deployment for the public, accelerating network coverage and integrated interconnection in indoor hotspots, high-speed rail scenarios, and rural scenarios; on the other hand, virtual private networks for scenarios such as smart manufacturing and Internet of Vehicles will attract more investment as industrial upgrading progresses. Under the background of carbon neutrality and carbon peaking, the green development of new infrastructure has also become an important direction. For example, in the energy-saving fields of 5G and data centers, the integrated innovation of information networks and energy networks is expected to become a highlight.

　　In terms of funding sources, diversified investment channels will be further opened up. For example, the recently released "Tianjin New Infrastructure Construction Three-Year Action Plan (2021-2023)" proposes to coordinate the use of special funds such as for intelligent manufacturing, amplify the guiding role of the Haihe Industrial Fund and the Binhai Industrial Development Fund, and leverage social capital to increase investment. Financial institutions are encouraged to increase credit support, and eligible projects are encouraged to carry out pilot real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the infrastructure field. Foshan also proposes to further increase the leverage role of municipal and district fiscal funds, fully leverage the government's guiding layout role, and promote more social capital to participate in new infrastructure construction.

　　Enterprise funding will also further increase. Taking 5G as an example, the related investment of telecommunications central enterprises will grow steadily in 2021. According to the plans announced by the three major operators China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, the total 5G-related capital expenditure budget reaches 184.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.44%. In addition, China Tower has scheduled an investment of 18.4 billion yuan related to 5G in 2021.

　　"New infrastructure has characteristics such as fast technology iteration and many intangible assets, and needs to continuously introduce incremental funds for support," said Fan Meng. Next, focusing on the future revenue characteristics of new infrastructure, we can explore the development of financial products based on future revenue rights, such as order pledge financing for facility use rights and pledge financing for government purchase service rights. At the same time, appropriately increase the proportion of new infrastructure in overall local bond investment, support enterprises to revitalize existing assets through REITs, or monetize future cash flows through asset-backed securities (ABS) and asset-backed notes (ABN).

　　Zhang Yunyong also stated that introducing the PPP model and REITs model into the market-oriented investment of new infrastructure is expected to become the future development direction, further leveraging the advantages of social capital in planning, design, construction, investment promotion, and operation, and promoting an innovative model combining fiscal funds, government bonds, and market-oriented investment. When planning new infrastructure projects, localities need to evaluate from multiple dimensions such as investment return, integrated development, and sustainable operation, balancing efficiency and effectiveness, and attracting more medium- and long-term funds to participate in new infrastructure project construction.