Communications, energy projects become priority

China Construction Fifth Engineering Bureau Ltd, or CSCEC5B, plans to deploy more resources to grab greater market share in new types of infrastructure in economies participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, the company's top executive said.

The company, a subsidiary of Beijing-based China State Construction Engineering Corp, is expanding its construction activity such as building rail networks, airports, highways, bridges and ports in overseas markets, especially in BRI-related economies.

It also plans to take hold of growth points in global industrial chain transformation and market revitalization in the coming years in order to participate in "new infrastructure" projects, said Tian Weiguo, the company's board chairman.

He said projects including 5G base stations and artificial intelligence-related supporting facilities, as well as new energy businesses such as wind power and photovoltaic power generation, will be the company's priorities in the next stage.

Unlike traditional infrastructure such as railways, roads and water conservancy, the concept of "new infrastructure" refers to critical facilities based on information technologies like 5G, AI, the industrial internet and the internet of things. IoT describes networks of devices that can connect and exchange data.

Based in Changsha, Hunan province, the company has 45,000 employees and 26 branches abroad. It has built projects in more than 20 countries, including Algeria, Pakistan, Thailand and Singapore. In 2021, the company saw the value of newly signed contracts exceed 10 billion yuan ($1.37 billion) in overseas markets.

China's centrally administered State-owned enterprises will rely on their advantages, such as scale, technology and talent accumulation, to bolster cooperation with economies participating in the BRI as well as other parts of the world, said Qian Zhimin, board chairman of Beijing-based State Power Investment Corp.

Qian said China's central SOEs have a distinct advantage in taking part in international projects. Backed by their technologies and products, their overseas assets now exceed 8 trillion yuan.

Over 700 subsidiaries of nearly 70 central SOEs invested a total of 400 billion yuan in "new infrastructure" in 2021, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

The government said that these central SOEs plan to invest in more than 1,300 "new infrastructure" projects during the 2021-25 period, with investment amounting to over 10 trillion yuan.

SOE investment in projects related to new infrastructure will accelerate the integration and application of innovative technologies like AI and big data with the real economy, and support the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, said Liu Xingguo, a researcher at the China Enterprise Confederation in Beijing.

Liu said, "It will not only create more jobs and new businesses in both domestic and global markets over the long run, but also generate advance business orders in both upstream and downstream areas, helping to stabilize the expectations of SMEs."