China’s infrastructure spending could rise sharply in 2025 to meet 5-year targets

Due to the fact that China’s five-year plan for 2021-2025 ticks down, many infrastructure targets remain unmet, setting the stage for a potential acceleration in construction that could spur investment growth next year.

Official data shows that progress in key sectors – from railways to nuclear power – is lagging behind the plan’s targets, leaving plenty of room for next year, according to a review of progress on the five-year plan by the Post.

To meet him target construction of 50,000 km (31,069 miles) of high-speed rail lines by 2025, according to calculations based on data released by the Ministry of Transport, China still needs to add about 3,800 km of new lines between the current quarter and next year.

This required pace far exceeds the progress made in the first three quarters of 2024, when only 1,210 km of high-speed lines were added.

In the nuclear power sector, the latest government data at the end of August showed that China’s installed nuclear power capacity reached 58.08 million kilowatts.

Although this represents an increase of about 7 million kW compared to the end of 2020, it is still far from reaching 70 million kW of operating capacity within the country 14 five-year plan.