In Depth: The Inconvenient Truth About China’s Investment Funk

The deputy director of Hunan province’s statistics bureau and his researchers didn’t pull any punches when they reported on the dismal state of infrastructure investment.

“In the current situation of debt prevention and control, declining efficiency, and the narrowing opportunities for investment, the pressure to stabilize investment remains immense,” Li Yannan and his colleagues wrote in their half-year report (link in Chinese) on the province’s economy in July. “Investment in some key areas is depressed … support for some major (infrastructure) projects is weak … funding is inadequate.”