China has always been known as the "infrastructure demon", which is particularly evident in the construction of highways, domestic highways to break through 10,000 kilometers in 12 years; from 10,000 kilometers to 20,000 kilometers in 4 years, and from 20,000 kilometers to 30,000 kilometers in only two years, and now the total length of domestic highways has exceeded 160,000 kilometers, ranking first in the world, the total length is connected, can circle the earth for a full four times.
Daily income of 1.5 billion, but debt of 7 trillion?
However, the rapid development of highway mileage has brought about a high total investment in toll road construction, most of which is borrowed to build roads, so a huge amount of debt has been formed. Even with 393 million motor vehicles on the mainland, it still can't afford such a vast network of highways. According to the "2020 National Toll Road Statistical Bulletin" released by the Ministry of Transport, in 2020, the revenue of domestic toll roads reached 486.8 billion yuan, an average of 1.5 billion yuan per day, but in 2020, the expenditure of mainland expressways was as high as 1234.6 billion yuan, calculating that in 2020 alone, the domestic highway losses reached 747.8 billion yuan. By the end of 2020, the balance of toll road debt nationwide reached 7,066.12 billion yuan.
Many people wonder, repairing highways seems to be a profitable business, a lifetime income of investment, just like a printing machine, why there will be such a large-scale loss? Some people say, let me repair the high-speed, to ensure that the cost is recovered for a few years, these people actually do not understand the logic behind the high-speed loss.
The cost of highway construction is too high
The national highway is a game of chess, but not all regional highways are loss-making, the highways in Shandong are significantly profitable, and the highways in many areas in the east are also very profitable, and this part of the highway is indeed profitable for whoever goes to repair it, and the pig can manage it for more than ten years or even a few years. But what about the Western Region? What about the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau? You go fix it? See how many years it will be profitable?
The construction cost of building high-speed highways in plain areas is relatively low, generally at 50 million per kilometer. However, in some mountainous areas and plateau areas, the cost of building highways is very high, because the cost of building bridges in the mountains and rivers is generally more than 100 million yuan, while in some coastal areas, because of the construction of cross-sea bridges, the cost is as high as 200 million yuan per kilometer. For example, the Beijing New Airport Expressway, which started construction in 2016, has a total length of only 35.2 kilometers, but the two-way eight-lane design, coupled with many viaducts, has a total investment of 17.26 billion yuan, an average of 490 million yuan per kilometer.
For the capital that pursues profits, the best choice is not to repair the high-speed in these areas, because it is not known which year will the cost be recovered, but for the vast western region, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Guizhou, Yunnan, Xinjiang, and even the northeast, Gansu, Shaanxi, Ningxia, is it because the high-speed construction does not make money, people in these areas can not enjoy the convenience of high-speed travel? Many keyboard men are attacking the highway on the Internet for years of losses, while enjoying the convenience of highway travel, what is the difference between this and "picking up the bowl to eat meat, putting down the chopsticks and scolding the mother"?
In 2020, the total construction of the mainland toll road reached 1.3 trillion yuan, most of the investment in this part was spent on the construction of highways in some remote areas, in fact, the central and eastern economically developed areas, the high-speed network framework has been basically completed, and now the main thing the mainland is to improve the highway network in economically underdeveloped areas.
In addition to building high-speed roads, where is the money spent?
In the past 10 years, the length of the mainland expressway has achieved leapfrog development, as of now, the cumulative construction investment of the mainland toll road has reached 10.81 trillion yuan, in addition to the construction of high speed, in fact, the annual highway tolls, but also used in these places.
1. Loan repayment: In 2020, the principal of debt repayment will be 718.01 billion yuan, and the interest on debt repayment will be 306.13 billion yuan
Before 1984, the mainland's highway construction is dependent on financial investment, but the financial funds are limited after all, in December 1984, the State Council issued a new toll road policy, the formation of "national investment, local financing, social financing, the use of foreign capital" diversified investment and financing mechanism, which has the mainland high-speed mileage of rapid development, simply put, allow multiple parties to raise funds to build roads, a large part of which comes from lending, by the end of 2020, The balance of toll road debt in the country is 7,066.12 billion yuan, so the annual toll needs to repay the principal and interest of the debt.
2. Expressway maintenance and management: In 2020, the maintenance expenditure was 74.41 billion yuan, and the operation and management expenditure was 75.54 billion yuan
More than 160,000 kilometers of highways, there must be a huge maintenance cost, although compared to the construction cost, maintenance costs are much lower, in 2020, maintenance expenditure of 74.41 billion yuan, operation and management expenditure of 75.54 billion yuan. Because of the vigorous promotion of ETC, the administrative cost of highways has been reduced compared with last year.
3. Reconstruction and expansion of highways and auxiliary facilities: 31.20 billion yuan will be spent in 2020
The ancillary facilities of the expressway include highway signs, signs, signal lights, barricades, barriers, slippery waves, bridges, street lights, green plants, toll stations, etc., and the construction expenditure of these facilities is 31.2 billion yuan in 2020.
In addition, because of the impact of the epidemic, in the past two years, the domestic high-speed reduction of vehicle tolls remains high, in 2020, the national toll road a total of 238.25 billion yuan of vehicle tolls, accounting for 32.9% of the total tolls receivable in 2020, of which the vehicle tolls waived during the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic reached 159.30 billion yuan, accounting for 66.9%.
At the end of the day, always staring at the loss figures on the highway is inevitably too small. Expressway as a transportation infrastructure, its role is very critical, as the saying goes, if you want to build a road first, the highway greatly shortens the time and space distance, greatly improves the transportation efficiency, provides a basic guarantee for economic and social development, its significance is difficult to measure with the investment of construction funds, and with the slowdown of the construction of the mainland expressway, the debt and interest will always be paid off on the day, the Guangzhou-Foshan Expressway has stopped charging? Therefore, the loss data of the highway seems to be amazing, but the economic and social value it brings is immeasurable, and even the highway in remote areas is gradually highlighting its value and letting the bullet fly for a while.