Last year, in the face of the sudden impact of the pandemic, batches of major key projects in many places overcame various difficulties and completed their construction progress with both quality and quantity guaranteed. This year marks the opening year of the "14th Five-Year Plan," and precisely expanding effective investment plays an even more decisive role in stabilizing and reviving the economy. Many places have long taken active action, drawing up a "construction blueprint" for major project investment in 2021.

　　Xu Guangrui, Executive Director of the Guoxin Future Science and Technology Research Institute, told reporters that judging from the current stage of China's economic development, the country is gradually moving from the late stage of industrialization toward the post-industrial era. In this process, investment remains one of the important means of stabilizing economic growth; in particular, achieving efficient investment and increasing effective supply is of great significance for achieving a good start to the "14th Five-Year Plan."

　　"Act early, prepare early"—the overall "construction blueprints" for construction in various places have also been published one after another. Xie Gaobo, Deputy Director of the Hubei Provincial Development and Reform Commission, once introduced that in 2021 Hubei Province aims to start construction on 4,274 major projects each worth 100 million yuan or more, and accelerate the construction of 4,881 ongoing projects each worth 100 million yuan or more. A teleconference (expanded) of the Shaanxi Provincial Special Task Force on Stabilizing Investment held on January 19 pointed out that it will advance at high speed and accelerate the construction of key projects; in the first half of the year, the investment completion rate of Shaanxi's key projects must reach more than 60%, and the start-up rates of newly started projects in the first three quarters must reach 50%, 80%, and 100% respectively (except northern Shaanxi in the first quarter).

　　Recently, the Office of the Leading Group for Major Projects and Key Project Construction in Guizhou Province issued a notice, issuing the 2021 list of major engineering projects in Guizhou Province and the advancement plan, arranging a total of 4,071 major engineering projects in Guizhou Province, with an annual planned investment of 740.07 billion yuan. The prominent feature of Guizhou Province's major engineering project plan arrangement this year is its focus on the "Four Transformations." A total of 3,154 "Four Transformations" projects (new industrialization, new urbanization, agricultural modernization, and tourism industrialization) have been arranged, with an annual planned investment of 581.53 billion yuan, accounting for 78.6% of the total annual planned investment of Guizhou Province's major engineering projects.

　　Xu Guangrui said that localities actively laying out efforts to stabilize investment has three main roles and significances. First, stabilizing investment is an important foundation for stabilizing the economic fundamentals; when uncertainty in the international situation is significantly increasing, stabilizing effective investment helps strengthen confidence in economic growth, provide good social expectations, and enhance international competitiveness. Second, optimizing the structure of effective investment helps accelerate the adjustment of the economic structure, simultaneously stimulate the release of effective demand, and promote a virtuous cycle of national economic production, circulation, distribution, consumption, and expanded reproduction. Third, stabilizing effective investment helps accelerate efforts to shore up weaknesses in key areas and weak links, simultaneously guide, attract, and drive social capital to participate in the construction of major projects that meet the needs of people's livelihood development, and improve infrastructure.

　　Wang Meiting, a postdoctoral researcher at the Bank of China Research Institute, told reporters that 2021 is the opening year for implementing the "14th Five-Year Plan" and the 2035 long-range objectives, and also the starting point for building a new development pattern with the domestic circulation as the main body and the domestic and international dual circulations mutually promoting each other. To ensure a good start and a good first step, expanding domestic demand in 2021 is of great significance. Investment is an important lever for expanding domestic demand. As epidemic prevention and control enters the normalization stage, stabilizing investment can play the role of stabilizing growth through investment and optimizing the supply structure; effective government investment can drive enterprise investment and further promote residents' employment and consumption.

　　It can be said that concentrated groundbreaking of major project investment in various places is in full swing, and the projects "taking the lead" carry considerable weight.

　　On January 17, Anhui Province held an on-site advancement meeting for accelerating the construction of distinctive industrial clusters and for the province's concentrated groundbreaking of major projects implementing the "Six Stabilities." Cities across Anhui Province concentrated on starting 249 major projects, with a total investment of 113.007 billion yuan, covering 12 fields including strategic emerging industries and the upgrading and transformation of traditional industries. On February 20, the 2021 Henan Province key project concentrated groundbreaking activity was held, with 2,772 key projects participating, with a total investment of 1.6 trillion yuan, mainly involving fields such as "Two New and One Heavy," advanced manufacturing, social livelihood, innovation capacity, ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin, among which there were 220 provincial-level key projects with a total investment of 392.8 billion yuan. On February 24, Shenzhen held the concentrated launch activity for the first batch of newly started projects with 200 billion yuan of investment in 2021. A total of 222 newly started projects were involved, with a total investment of about 264.45 billion yuan and an annual planned investment of about 55.79 billion yuan.

　　From the perspective of investment fields, Wang Meiting said that in 2021 the provincial two sessions have made new infrastructure investment a focal point for expanding effective investment. In addition, they will continue to lean toward the "Two New and One Heavy" fields, lay out frontier technology fields, invest in strategic emerging industries, and support fields of people's livelihood and public infrastructure.