1/5
Very interesting Caixin article. Beijing has stopped work on two HSR projects in Shandong and Shaanxi because of provincial debt concerns. In both cases they cancelled the projects after discovering that they were designed mainly to create.. https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-04-26/as-debt-mounts-beijing-puts-brakes-on-two-high-speed-rail-projects-101700126.html">https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-04-2...

2/5
economic activity, and were not otherwise expected to generate enough economic value to justify the expenditures.

In fact this can probably said of many if not most HSR projects initiated in the past decade, which is why I suspect the real reason these projects were...

3/5
stopped (and I expect there will be more later this year) is because the regulators know that they won& #39;t need high levels of unwanted investment to achieve the GDP growth target this year. If they want to show that they are serious about deleveraging, they must limit the...

4/5
sources of growth this year as much as possible to consumption, exports and business investment. That means they have no need to support these unproductive HSR projects.

But because this year& #39;s GDP will receive a one-off boost that will not be replicated in...

5/5
future years, I wouldn& #39;t be surprised if by next year — with a few revisions for form& #39;s sake — these projects are once again revived if Beijing wants to target GDP growth above 2-3%.