Private Investment

The Chinese Government’s intensified efforts to encourage the private sector’s participation in infrastructure investment for healthy economic growth are yielding results.

By the end of September, over 1,200 local infrastructure projects worth at least 2.5 trillion yuan

($362 billion) had been promoted among private companies, the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s economic planning agency, said.

The firms reportedly have shown interest in 150 projects worth at least 250 billion yuan ($36 billion).

At the same time, they signed eight airport construction agreements with investment totaling nearly 50 billion yuan ($7.2 billion).

Infrastructure schemes comprise energy and transportation projects, highways, garbage disposal facilities and reservoirs.

The private sector accounts for more than 60 percent of China’s total fixed assets investment. It rose 8.8 percent year on year in the first seven months of this year. percent year on year in the same period, slowing from the 4.1-percent increase in August.

The CPI uptick was driven by a fast increase in non-food prices, which rose 2.2 percent year on year, contributing to a 1.78-percentagepoint increase in the overall CPI increase, the NBS said.

On a month-on-month basis, the CPI increased 0.7 percent from August, as food prices rose 2.4 percent.

China is aiming to keep annual CPI growth at around 3 percent this year, the same target as 2017.

The average year-on-year CPI growth for the first nine months stood at 2.1 percent, compared with 2 percent for the first eight months.

NBS statistician Sheng Guoqing said the carryover effect contributed 1.9 percentage points to the 3.6-percent year-on-year PPI growth, while new factors contributed 1.7 percentage points.

On a monthly basis, the PPI increased 0.6 percent in September, picking up from 0.4 percent in August.