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Spending the Stimulus: Where China’s Money is Going

China's National Development and Reform Commission has issued a status report on the spending of the nation's 4 trillion yuan ($486 billion) economic stimulus package. As of April 30, 230 billion yuan of new funding from the central government had been spent, and the NDRC has issued a list of the types of projects that are benefiting from the stimulus money. (It should be noted that 70% of the stimulus funding is supposed to come from non-central sources, such as local governments and bank lending).

As is often the case with government figures, they alternate between the highly specific ("273 pieces of grain-drying equipment" ) and the substantially less so ("speeding up the work on the South-North Water Transfer Project," which has been under way since 2002).

Below, we look at how China has committed to allocating its stimulus spending, along with the NDRC's accounting of how the first 230 billion yuan of central government funding has been spent (original report, in Chinese, is here):

1. Housing: China's stimulus plan allocates 400 billion yuan (10% of the total stimulus) to the construction of low-income housing, upgrading shanty towns and other measures to improve housing conditions.

Basically completed: 210,000 units of low-income housing.

Under construction: 650,000 units of low-income housing, 8,500 units on state-owned reclaimed land and 18,000 fixed homes for nomadic peoples.

Renovations: Work has been sped up on improvements to 100,000 homes in coal-mining shanty towns, 129,000 homes in areas subject to caving in as a result of coal mining and 157,000 shanty town homes on state-owned forest areas.

2. Rural Development: Basic village infrastructure and civil engineering projects, such as providing water, electricity and gas to rural areas will account for 370 billion yuan (or 9.25%) of stimulus spending.

Completed: 20,000 kilometers of roads, 254 rural electricity substations, 30,000 kilometers of power lines, 2.6 million mu (416,000 acres) of standardized grain fields, 5,000 programs to prevent animal epidemics. Purchased and installed 13,427 pieces of equipment to test the quality of rural products, 280,000 pieces of equipment to test food quality and safety, 273 pieces of grain-drying equipment and added 350,000 tons of edible oil storage capacity. Established 172 poverty relief and food-for-work programs, upgraded 700 postal routes, and resolved the problem of potable water for 14.6 million people.

Basically completed: 450 major water conservancy projects, 290 projects to improve the water quality in unsafe medium-to-large reservoirs, 193 large scale irrigation and water conservancy projects. Under construction: 1.6 million village methane pits.

Accelerated: Construction on the South-North Water Transfer Project.

3. Major Infrastructure. This area are set to receive the largest chunk of stimulus spending - 1.5 trillion yuan, or 37.5% of the total. Projects include railroads, highways, airports, other large-scale basic infrastructure and an upgrade of the urban electricity grids.

Completed: 445 kilometers of expressway, 100,000 square meters of passenger airport terminals.

Accelerated: Construction of the Harbin-Dalian, Wuhan-Guangzhou, Nanjing-Guangzhou and Guiyang-Guangzhou railroads, upgrading of the urban electricity grids.

4. Health Care, Education, Culture: Social development projects get 150 billion yuan (3.75%).

Completed: 900,000 square meters of mid-level vocational school buildings.

Basically completed: 1,246 township cultural stations, 6,500 basic health care-projects, 1,140 one-child policy service projects and six cornerstone Chinese medicine hospital projects.

Renovated: 1.5 million square meters of elementary and junior-high school buildings.

5. Environment: Energy saving, emissions reduction and ecological construction projects are allocated 210 billion yuan (5.25%).

Completed: Sewage treatment capacity increased by 2.8 million tons per day, garbage processing capacity increased by 3,155 tons per day, 320,000 tons of chromium residue processed, 2,548 kilometers of pipes laid, chemical oxygen demand reduced by 65,000 tons. Also created the capacity to conserve 6.2 million tons of standard coal, 120 million tons of water, and to recycle 2.7 million tons of waste. Accelerated: Planting of 29 million mu (4.6 million acres) of forest land.

6. Industry and Technology: China has allocated 370 billion yuan (9.25% of the total stimulus) to fund independent innovation and industrial restructuring.

Accelerated: 176 high-tech industrialization projects and 146 projects to advance industrial technology selected for investment by the central government last year.

Issued: This year's plan to invest in 222 projects to promote the electronic information industry and upgrade technology.

7. Post-quake Reconstruction: One trillion yuan (25% of the stimulus) is to be spent on rebuilding areas hit by last year's Sichuan earthquake.

No details were provided on spending in this area.

--Sky Canaves


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