Energy and economic impacts of China's 2016 economic investment plan for transport infrastructure construction: An input-output path analysis

This paper builds an input-output model to analyze the energy and economic impacts of the 4.7 trillion-CNY investment projects of the "Three-Year Action Plan for Major Construction Projects of Transportation Infrastructure", which was launched by the Chinese government in 2016. The results show that, from 2016 to 2018, the investment plan could increase China's GDP by 2.39%, 1.30%, and 1.24%, respectively, and the country's energy consumption by 3.98%, 2.35%, and 2.40%, respectively. The top five production sectors could contribute 55% of the GDP growth induced by the plan, and the top three sectors could contribute 83% of the energy consumption growth, indicating that the impact of the investment plan centers mainly on a limited number of sectors. From the view of supply chains, the 20 paths with the largest GDP contribution cover approximately 47% of the GDP growth induced by the plan, and the 20 paths that consume the most energy cover approximately 32% of the energy consumption growth. In these paths, the construction industry is the dominant demand sector, whereas the industry of nonmetallic mineral products, the industry of production and supply of electricity and steam, and the industry of smelting and pressing of metals are the primary supply sectors. In the future, the Chinese government should pay more attention to indirect energy consumption related to the construction industry, and policymakers will also need to set up more effective energy conservation policies for the upstream sectors of the construction industry, such as the sectors providing cement, glass, and steel. (c) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.