【英文】摩根士丹利报告：中国超级城市圈崛起分析报告The Rise of China's Supercities: New Era of Urbanization（154P）

英文研究报告 2019年11月01日 07:49 管理员

Near-term counter-cyclical easing to boost investment needed for Urbanization 2.0: The prevailing US-China trade tensions are bringing downside risks to growth trajectories both globally and in China (see Global Macro Briefing: Inching Closer to a Global Recession, 25 August 2019). In response, we expect China's policymakers to step up counter-cyclical easing, with a focus on boosting urban investment. Policy guidance at the 3Q Politburo and State Council meetings on September 4 suggested that infrastructure investment will be aimed at building up city clusters (commuter rail), renovating urban facilities (car parks, cold chains for food logistics), and next-gen mobile networks (5G), which are essential investments for Urbanization 2.0. We expect China's urbanization ratio to reach 75% by 2030, up from 60% today, translating into 220mn new urban dwellers. We expect total factor productivity to be sustained at a 1.6% CAGR through 2030 (vs. 1.9% in 2014-18), as labor productivity increases by 80% from today's level. Our growth accounting analysis suggests that 55% of the labor productivity increase will come from the agglomeration effect of smart supercities, with another 40% attributable to rural-urban migration and 5% coming from agricultural modernization on the back of land reforms and smart farming. We thus remain confident that China is poised to attain high-income status by 2025, with annual per capita income almost doubling, from US$9,450 today to US$17,800 by 2030.

Manageable financial stability risk from Urbanization 2.0 buildout: Contrary to market concerns that increased capex demand for Urbanization 2.0 will lead to renewed debt problems, we believe this risk is manageable considering (1) that there is less need for massive investment given China’s strong foundation of infrastructure today (for instance, we estimate the combined capex needed for digital infrastructure, high-speed rail and the smart grid – three key components of the smart supercity buildout – will be less than US$200bn per year in 2019-30, only about 10% of China's annual infrastructure FAI in the past five years); (2) more transparent funding given local governments' shift from shadow bank borrowing to bond issuance and a potential increase in private investment with market-oriented reforms; and (3) relatively higher asset quality in digital infrastructure and HSR (which will concentrate more on eastern China and inter-city commuter rail). These factors, combined with continued shadow bank tightening, affirm our view that China will stabilize its debt to GDP ratio in the next decade (see China: Blue Paper Revisit: Why we are still bullish on China, 14 November 2017).