EVs, 5G set to spearhead China’s ‘moderately excessive’ infrastructure push amid economic slowdown concerns
- China is likely to place an emphasis on new infrastructure – such as new energy, charging stations for electric cars, data centers, 5G
- Economists are worried about China’s economic slowdown with fourth quarter growth likely to fall below 4 per cent from 4.9 per cent in the third quarter
Beijing’s call for “moderately excessive development of infrastructure” may reflect its growing concerns over an economic slowdown, but it is unlikely to repeat the previous mistakes of debt-fuelled blind expansion of traditional projects, analysts said.
Debate over stimulus tools was triggered as the People’s Bank of China marginally loosened mortgage and development loans for qualified developers from October, while the central banks also deleted wording like “controlling the valve on money supply” in its monetary policy report last week.
He’s not talking about policies for the next three or five months, but a rather long-term guideline
Chinese policymakers will convene the annual central economic work conference next month to discuss the slowdown, as well as the impact of the coronavirus and external changes, setting the tone for the economic tasks for next year.
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China expands 5G network to over 1.15 million base stations, more than rest of the world combined
“He’s not talking about policies for the next three or five months, but a rather long-term guideline,” said Larry Hu, chief China economist of Macquarie Capital, referring to Liu’s explanation of the decisions made during the recently concluded sixth plenum.