Special bonds play an important role in driving the expansion of effective investment and stabilizing the macro-economic market. This year, China arranged to increase the amount of special bonds by 3.65 trillion yuan. The latest statistics show that by the end of June, 3.41 trillion yuan of new special bonds had been issued across the country. In 2022, the amount of new special bonds for project construction was basically issued, significantly ahead of previous years, driving the continuous expansion of effective investment scale. Drive investment forward "In response to the downward pressure on the economy and the impact of the epidemic, new special bond lines of 3.75 trillion yuan, 3.65 trillion yuan and 3.65 trillion yuan were arranged from 2020 to 2022, maintaining a high scale." Song Qichao, a first-class inspector of the budget department of the Ministry of Finance and director of the government debt research and evaluation center, said that since this year, the Ministry of finance has conscientiously implemented the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and adopted more active policy measures to promote all regions to speed up the issuance and use of special bonds. Macro policies should be "pushed forward". For special bonds, the first manifestation is that the new quota is issued early. In December last year, the Ministry of Finance issued 1.46 trillion yuan of new special bonds in advance. In March this year, all the new special bonds for project construction were issued, about 3 months earlier than the previous year on average. At the same time, the progress of the release is "speeding up". On the basis of the acceleration in the early stage, the State Council further required the State Council to firmly stabilize the economic package of policies and measures, "speed up the task of issuing and using this year's special bonds, accelerate the progress of issuing and using the 3.45 trillion yuan special bonds issued this year, basically complete the issuance by the end of June, and strive to basically complete the use by the end of August". It is reported that the Ministry of Finance timely guided local governments to adjust the issuance plan and speed up the pace of issuance. By the end of June, all regions had issued 3.41 trillion yuan of new special bonds. In 2022, the amount of new special bonds for project construction was basically issued, which was significantly ahead of the progress of previous years, fully reflecting the requirements of the proactive fiscal policy. According to the data released by the National Bureau of statistics, driven by the accelerated issuance of special bonds, infrastructure investment increased by 7.1% year-on-year in the first half of the year, 0.4 percentage points faster than that from January to may, rising for two consecutive months. Among them, the investment in information transmission industry increased by 20.6%, the investment in water conservancy management industry increased by 12.7%, the investment in public facilities management industry increased by 10.9%, and the investment in ecological protection and environmental governance industry increased by 4.8%. "Special bonds are an important starting point for implementing the proactive fiscal policy. Since this year, all regions have accelerated the issuance and use of special bonds and optimized the direction of capital investment, becoming an important force for stabilizing investment and growth." He Daixin, director of the Financial Research Office of the Institute of financial strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said. Reasonably expand the scope of use According to regulations, special bonds must be used for public welfare projects with certain income. Since this year, the investment direction of special bonds has remained stable on the whole, and optimized and adjusted in combination with the new situation in the economic operation. The executive meeting of the State Council held on March 29 made it clear that the scope of use of special bonds should be reasonably expanded, and public services with certain benefits should be supported on the basis of projects focused on transportation, energy, ecological environmental protection, affordable housing projects and other fields. It is reported that the special bonds continue to be mainly used in nine fields, including transportation infrastructure, energy, agriculture, forestry and water conservancy, ecological environmental protection, social undertakings, urban and rural cold chain and other logistics infrastructure, municipal and industrial park infrastructure, major national strategic projects, affordable housing projects and so on. At the same time, the scope of use of special bonds has been reasonably expanded, mainly including three aspects: increasing investment in areas such as benefiting people's livelihood and solving people's concerns; Support the construction of projects to increase stamina and improve the level; Promote the construction of weak and strong projects. In terms of project reserve, the Ministry of Finance and the national development and Reform Commission worked together to deploy the local government to submit the capital demand for special bond projects in 2022 in September last year. In January this year, the local government arranged to submit a batch of reserve projects, and a total of 71000 special bond projects were reserved in two batches. In mid and late June, many provinces successively completed the task of issuing special bonds. For example, Fujian completed the issuance on June 14. When arranging special bond projects, priority will be given to provincial key projects and projects in key areas such as water conservancy, education, health and pension, with a total of 487 related key projects of 80.6 billion yuan; Guangdong Province's 432.6 billion yuan of new bonds in 2022 were all issued on June 28. All bond funds were implemented in key areas and investment directions deployed by the state and the province, and nearly 80% were implemented in areas that significantly stimulate investment, such as transportation infrastructure, municipal and industrial park infrastructure. In addition, at the end of June, the annual new special bond limit of 138.8 billion yuan in Hunan Province was fully issued, which strongly supported the construction of 860 key projects and promoted the total investment of more than 650 billion yuan. The application of funds includes park construction, social undertakings such as health care and education, airports, railways, toll roads and other transportation infrastructure. Shaanxi Province completed the issuance of 76.4 billion yuan of new government special bonds in 2022, which effectively guaranteed the construction capital needs of a large number of key projects and key livelihood projects, such as Xi'an Xianyang International Airport, the diversion of Han to Wei River and Qin Chuang's original new drive platform. Statistics show that from January to June, the new special bonds issued supported more than 23800 projects, including about 10800 projects under construction and 13000 new projects. "All localities are required to give priority to the use of special bond funds to support key projects included in the outline of the national '14th five year plan' and major regional development strategies." Song Qichao said. The role of leveraging investment is obvious From the actual effect, the special bond plays an obvious role in leveraging investment. From January to June, more than 240 billion yuan of special bond funds were allocated by various localities as capital funds for major projects, effectively giving play to the leveraging role of government investment. For example, Guangdong continues to make full use of special bonds as the project capital policy, supports the acceleration of the construction of major infrastructure projects such as the third phase of Baiyun Airport, the Shenzhen Zhongshan river crossing, and the Pearl River Delta water resources allocation project, and leverages more social capital to participate in infrastructure investment, effectively stimulating investment. Fujian Province arranged 6.85 billion yuan of special bonds to be used as capital for major projects in the fields of transportation, water conservancy, urban sewage and waste treatment and water supply. Song Qichao introduced that the financial department actively guided the project units to connect with commercial banks. For projects with residual income after repayment of the principal and interest of special bonds, the project units can apply for market-oriented supporting financing according to the residual special income. Statistics show that the market-based financing of special bond projects from January to June exceeded 530billion yuan, which played an important role in driving the expansion of effective investment. For the key work in the second half of the year, song Qichao said that the first is to continue to do a good job in guiding local work and urging all regions to do a good job in the closing of special bond issuance. Second, urge local governments to allocate special bond funds in time, compact the responsibilities of project units, and promote the formation of physical workload of special bonds as soon as possible. "At the end of August, it is expected that most of the funds raised by issuing bonds will be used up, which will effectively support the implementation of major projects, and the policy effect of Finance on steady growth will further appear." Lian Ping, chief economist of Zhixin investment and President of the Research Institute, said. Lian Ping suggested that local governments should be urged to speed up the progress of special bond expenditure, further simplify and optimize the project approval process, and improve the efficiency of the use of special bond funds; Give full play to the role of social capital, and introduce policies to encourage and guide social capital to participate in investment; Guide the effective connection between credit funds and special bond funds. "New infrastructure, major livelihood projects, transportation projects, etc. will be important investment areas, and also the focus of forming physical workload. The issuance and use of special bonds involves multiple departments, which requires the joint efforts of all parties to improve expenditure efficiency, strictly supervise funds, promote the compliance and efficient use of funds, prevent precipitation and idleness, and better play the important role of special bonds in stimulating effective investment and stabilizing the macro-economic market." He Daixin said. (Xinhua News Agency)