China Changsha unveils US$130 billion municipal investment plan

Changsha, capital of central China’s Hunan Province, unveiled a package of infrastructure and industry projects Thursday that would require total investments of 829.2 billion yuan ($130.2 billion), a move to stimulate local economic growth. The government plans to stimulate economy by investing in infrastructure, finance, power generation and tourism.

The Changsha city government unveiled 195 projects, including an airport expansion, road construction, waste treatment facilities and redevelopment of 10 older areas in the city, according to a statement posted on the government’s website. According to China News Service, apart from large projects in infrastructure, 155 small projects were also included, covering energy saving,emission reduction and people’s livelihood.

This is a staggering amount of investment for a city whose total GDP was $87 billion in 2011. It’s also notable because Changsha is already one of China’s fastest-growing, most prosperous and industrially competitive cities.

Its population of 7 million enjoys a per-capita GDP of $12,313 — about three times the average of China as a whole and third among China’s provincial capitals and nearly eight times the $1,623 per-capital GDP in 2002. Changsha posted a blazing 14.5% annual growth rate last year, far higher than the 9% rate for the nation.

Changsha is where Broad Group was planning to build the tallest building in the world. It would be a 838 meter tall (220 story skyscraper called Sky City One

Reach for the sky: the world’s tallest buildings, once the 838-meter Sky City is completed, projected for January 2013.

Changsha plans to stimulate the economy at 200 times the cost of Sky City ($638 million) then why wouldn’t they fund Sky City ? If the stimulus is “too big”, then the “cherry on top” would only by 0.5% of any future issue. I wish them good luck on their stimulus, but will be happy to see a completed Sky City One in January or February 2013.

China is making a second major stimulus push after economic growth slowed to a three-year low of 7.6% in the second quarter. Among them are 66 billion yuan ($10.5 billion) for affordable housing and 26.5 billion yuan ($4.4 bil.) to subsidize sales of energy-efficient appliances. The central bank has also begun loosening bank lending and reserve requirements as inflation has cooled considerably since last year.

Other cities have announced plans to subsidize purchase of low-cost housing and efforts to build more and faster roads and railways, push alternative energy, stimulate sales of clean cars, build more hospitals and improve water treatment facilities as part of the stimulus effort.

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