During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, western China is building a “reserve granary” for sand and gravel aggregates—three key aspects highlight just how “highly favored” sand and gravel aggregates have become!

The 2022 Government Work Report proposed actively expanding effective investment. It emphasized optimizing the investment structure, overcoming investment bottlenecks, and truly harnessing the pivotal role of investment. Judging from the key project investment plans released by various regions for 2022, focusing on the construction of major projects has become a crucial approach for provinces this year to boost investment and stabilize growth.

As of now, 19 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across the country have released their lists of key project investment plans for 2022, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Guizhou, Hebei, and Anhui. Among these, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang each have annual planned investments exceeding one trillion yuan.

The interviewed experts said that, judging from the lists of key project investments released by various regions for 2022 and the start-up situation in the first quarter, investment in the first quarter is expected to significantly boost GDP growth compared to the same period last year, making it a strong start to the year.

Many regions have proposed moderately advancing the planning and deployment of infrastructure projects, with a strong focus on the development of new types of infrastructure. In addition, urban renewal has become a key investment priority for various localities this year. Cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, and Zhejiang are all actively pursuing urban renewal initiatives, several of which involve urban renewal projects worth tens of billions of yuan—remarkably large-scale undertakings in the urban renewal sector in recent years.

In 2022, investment plans were successively released by provinces across the country. As an indispensable raw material, sand and gravel play a critically important role in infrastructure development. The vigorous advancement of a large number of new infrastructure projects has undoubtedly become a major driving force behind the strong demand for sand and gravel.

Multiple provinces are stepping up investment in key projects.

Looking at the annual planned investment amounts from various regions, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang all have annual planned investments exceeding one trillion yuan, ranking them among the top three provinces with publicly announced figures.

In 2022, Anhui Province saw a total of 8,897 investment projects, an increase of over 1,000 compared to the first batch of planned projects last year. The annual planned investment reached 1.66 trillion yuan, representing an 11.8% year-on-year growth. It is clear from these figures that Anhui is determined to expand investment and stabilize economic growth.

In January of this year, Anhui Province released the “Anhui Province Action Plan for Intensive Efforts in Effective Investment (2022),” setting a target of achieving an annual growth rate of over 10% in fixed-asset investment across the province in 2022. Among these efforts, investment in key projects has been identified as a crucial driver for boosting overall fixed-asset investment growth, with a commitment to ensuring that the total investment in provincial key projects for the year exceeds 1.6 trillion yuan. The plan also aims to achieve an annual investment completion rate of over 55% for provincial key projects by the first half of the year.

Among Anhui’s key projects planned for this year, there are a total of 4,307 manufacturing projects covering strategic emerging industries, upgrading and transforming traditional industries, and building innovation capabilities. The annual planned investment for these projects amounts to 608.796 billion yuan, accounting for 48.4% and 36.7% of the province’s total, respectively. Judging from Anhui’s efforts to build itself into a major and strong manufacturing province, it is clear that Anhui is making every effort to secure a leading position among China’s top-tier manufacturing regions.

In an interview, Pang Ming, Chief Economist and Chief Strategy Analyst at Huaxing Securities (Hong Kong), stated that Anhui is currently at a critical juncture in transitioning from old to new growth drivers and upgrading its industrial structure. At the same time, Anhui is also an important region within the Yangtze River Delta’s integrated development framework. From these two perspectives, Anhui’s long-term planning will be more comprehensive, and the implementation of key projects will proceed more swiftly. “Whether viewed from the perspective of catching up in GDP rankings or from the standpoint of investment growth, Anhui has demonstrated strong momentum in recent years. However, given its current base level, Anhui still has considerable room for further growth and significant development potential.”

Zhejiang also hopes to leverage the construction of key projects as a driving force to expand investment. According to the “2022 Implementation Plan for Zhejiang Province’s ‘4+1’ Major Project Construction Initiative” (hereinafter referred to as the “Plan”), in 2022, Zhejiang Province has scheduled 843 major “4+1” projects, with an annual planned investment of 1,097.2 billion yuan. The “Plan” clearly states that Zhejiang will take the construction of major projects as a key driver to vigorously expand effective investment, optimize the investment structure, and enhance investment efficiency, thereby steadily advancing the “1+9” initiative aimed at improving the structure and expanding investment.

Meanwhile, Zhejiang’s local private sector has been developing rapidly, and the construction of key projects has become a crucial link connecting government initiatives with grassroots forces. How to leverage these key projects to stimulate private investment has thus become the primary task outlined in the “Plan.” The “Plan” emphasizes strengthening service and support for private enterprises’ investments and establishing a long-term mechanism for actively promoting major infrastructure projects to private capital.

In addition, Guangdong’s investment in key projects this year stands out among the provinces, cities, and districts that have already announced their plans. In 2022, the total investment in Guangdong’s key projects reached approximately 7.67 trillion yuan, with an annual planned investment of about 900 billion yuan—a 12.5% increase over last year’s plan.

Where will Guangdong’s project investments be directed this year? According to Guangdong’s plans, infrastructure projects will account for 55.5% of the province’s total annual planned investment, reaching 499.3 billion yuan—a share exceeding half of the total. In addition, annual planned investment in industrial projects amounts to 285.1 billion yuan, while annual planned investment in projects aimed at improving people’s livelihoods totals 115.6 billion yuan.

Judging from Guangdong’s project layout, many major strategic projects are being developed to support the construction of the “Two Zones.” In 2022, Guangdong scheduled a total of 968 key projects for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, with an annual planned investment of 548.9 billion yuan. Guangdong will accelerate the interconnectivity of infrastructure within the Greater Bay Area by advancing the construction of these key projects and promote the development of the Greater Bay Area into an international innovation hub.

Multiple urban renewal projects worth tens of billions have been unveiled.

In 2022, “moderately advanced infrastructure development” remained a key focus for localities. In the 2022 investment plans for key projects across various provinces, the trend toward “moderately advanced” infrastructure projects was particularly evident, with many regions stepping up their efforts to deploy new infrastructure projects such as 5G communications and data centers.

Pang Ming stated that the digital economy is a key focus of new infrastructure development. Building digital infrastructure not only represents proactive preparation for the advancement of computing power but also helps promote balanced development among regions. Moreover, it provides certain support for the green development of infrastructure.

It is worth noting that since the beginning of this year, the topic of “urban renewal” has been gaining increasing popularity. The Government Work Report proposed to advance urban renewal in an orderly manner, strengthen the construction of municipal infrastructure and disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities, carry out inspections and remediation of safety hazards in old buildings and facilities, resume construction and renovation of a batch of aging residential communities in towns and cities, and promote the development of barrier-free environments and age-friendly renovations.

Urban renewal has also been incorporated into the work reports of multiple local governments. For example, the 2022 Government Work Report of Tianjin City proposed steadily and orderly implementing urban renewal initiatives, deeply advancing the renovation of old residential buildings and aging residential communities, addressing infrastructure shortcomings, enhancing community service functions, establishing long-term management mechanisms for renovated older residential areas, earnestly carrying out the beneficial project of retrofitting elevators in existing residential buildings where conditions permit, promoting the renovation of outdated heating networks and 503 kilometers of gas pipelines, and tackling flooding and waterlogging issues in the central urban area.

It is understood that Tianjin issued the "Implementation Rules (Trial) for the Planning, Land Management, and Survey & Registration of Renovation and Upgrading of Old Residential Buildings and Old Residential Areas in Tianjin Municipality" at the end of 2021. This year, several urban renewal projects—including the renovation and upgrading of the Ancient Culture Street scenic area, the upgrade of the TEDA Football Stadium, the Wudadao Park project, and the renovation of old residential buildings and long-standing housing units in the Binhai New Area—have been included in Tianjin’s 2022 List of Key Construction Projects. Among these, the urban renewal project in the seaport area of the Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone covers an area of 6.5 square kilometers with a total investment of approximately 10.7 billion yuan. The allocation of tens of billions of yuan to “industry-to-industry” renewal projects in industrial parks represents a rare large-scale initiative in Tianjin’s urban renewal sector.

In addition to Tianjin, provinces and cities such as Beijing, Guangdong, Fujian, Anhui, and Zhejiang have all made significant investments in key urban renewal projects. Among these, several urban renewal projects worth tens of billions of yuan are already underway. For example, the Hetangxia Old Village Renovation Project in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, involves an investment of 36.401 billion yuan; the Lijiao Urban Village Renovation Project has an investment of 30 billion yuan; and the Chentian Village Urban Village Renovation Project has an investment of 28.895 billion yuan.

Chen Yao, vice president of the China Regional Economic Society, told reporters that Tianjin, Guangdong, and other regions are placing great emphasis on urban renewal as a way to further optimize their investment structures, which also reflects the stage-specific nature of their urban development. “Against the backdrop of steady economic growth, the issue of where to direct investments has become particularly prominent: Where exactly should we be investing to ensure effectiveness? In my view, investments directed toward urban renewal align with the new type of urbanization we advocate—a people-centered approach—and can help us achieve our goal of continuously improving the quality of life for the people.”