How to reduce road and bridge fees?

According to the China Logistics and Purchasing Federation's “Report on Relieving the Burden of Logistics Enterprises in 2013”, of the 128 key contact logistics companies surveyed, 30.6% reported that the toll rate was higher, and 18.0% of the companies reported that the fee was not In the unified, 28.8% of the enterprises reported that the overcharged fees were unreasonable, and 28.8% of the enterprises reported that the extended charges and deferred charges still existed.

Luqiao charges have indeed pushed up the transportation costs of logistics companies and increased the operational burden on logistics companies. However, can road tolls be exempted or reduced? Obviously not.

In fact, "High highway tolls" has always been one of the hot topics that the society is focusing on. Whether it is logistics companies or the general public, they are all very concerned about the issue of highway toll collection, and many voices hope that road tolls can be reduced or even eliminated in the future. However, in the long run, China’s road toll collection has not been effectively reduced. Therefore, it is difficult to reduce highway tolls. where?

Loan road repair mode to lock up China's highway development can be described as "rapid". In 1984, Shanghai-Jiashan Expressway began construction and was completed and operated four years later, becoming China's first expressway. In just 30 years, China’s expressway network has reached all directions and its mileage ranks among the top in the world. According to the 2013 Traffic and Industry Development Statistics Bulletin recently released by the Ministry of Transport, it is shown that by the end of 2013, the length of highways nationwide has reached 104,400 kilometers.

The rapid formation of the highway network in China has promoted the development of many industries such as logistics, tourism, and manufacturing, and has made important contributions to the activation of the national economy. The speed of construction of the expressway is so fast that it benefits from the financing construction model of “loan road construction, fee repayment”. "If there is no support for the 'Loan Road Construction and Fee Repayment' model, there will be no highway network in China today." Hu Fangjun, Deputy Director of the Institute of Transportation Finance and Finance of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport, told the "Modern Logistics News" The reporter said that highway construction has the characteristics of large investment, long construction period, and long payback period. If you do not rely on the financial strength of banks, it is difficult to rapidly develop our country’s highways. Loans for road construction have effectively alleviated the contradiction of insufficient funds for road construction. Collecting tolls also becomes an inevitable result of repayment.

According to Hu Fangjun's analysis, from the perspective of foreign experience, the development of the national economy to a certain period will usher in a 30 to 40-year period of concentrated road construction. Therefore, China’s road development may reach a stable level within ten years, and this will be the next decade. Highway construction still depends on loans.

Regarding highway toll collection, Li Shenglin, former Minister of Transport, published an article in the People's Daily on September 19, 2011, stating that according to China's current economic and social development level, the toll highway policy is still to raise road traffic in the coming period. The important channels for building funds need to continue.

Obviously, it is not practical to exempt highway tolls in the short term, and “credit road repairs and loan repayment” will become the norm. Zhao Jian, a professor at the School of Economics and Management at Beijing Jiaotong University, said in an interview with a reporter from the “Modern Logistics News”: “The new effective highway financing mechanism has not been established. Many companies currently provide financing through debt issuance, but this method only Can reduce part of financing costs, fundamentally speaking, 'loan road construction, repayment of loans,' the model will not change, not yet finished the loan, can only continue to charge.

The Luqiao company owes a profit to the company. Recently, the Guangxi Expressway's practice of raising fees has attracted much attention. Zhu Lin, Deputy Director of the Price Bureau of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said that since highway investment in Guangxi is mainly resolved through bank loans, the proportion of self-raised enterprises generally accounts for 25% to 35%, and only 40% in individual cases, liabilities increase, and the proportion of bank loans increases year by year. The income of highway projects built and to be completed and open to traffic is poor, and the ability to repay loans is low. Toll revenue is not enough to pay bank loan interest, let alone to repay loan principal. Therefore, the risk of loan repayment and the cost of financing under the current charging policy increase, resulting in a difficult and difficult financing situation.

As we all know, the main source of freeway revenue is toll income. From the perspective of road and bridge operators, it is difficult to reduce fees. Under the model of “Lending on roads and repaying loans”, China’s expressway companies are facing enormous debt pressure. He Jianzhong, spokesman of the Ministry of Transport, said in 2012 that the total investment of China’s toll roads was 3.65 trillion yuan, and the debt balance was 2.32 trillion yuan, and the debt ratio was 64%.

An executive from the Tianjin Expressway Group said in an interview with this reporter that in recent years, financing channels for expressway construction have not been broadened, and related policies have tightened. The scale of corporate debt in the industry is generally at a high level, and loans and issuance of bonds have continued to come. After the period, companies will face greater pressure to pay. "Even if companies pay off construction loans, they are still far from recovering the overall costs. These costs will take time to gradually recover."

Hu Fangjun told reporters that a large number of expressways in China are currently only in state of preservation, and loss of expressways is not uncommon. “The cost of road construction and maintenance is getting higher and higher, and the pressure for paying interest and repaying the principal is very high. A few expressways such as Jingshi, Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan, and Nanjing-Shanghai are indeed highly profitable, but from a nationwide perspective, such There are still a few high-speed roads.” He pointed out that the occurrence of intensively setting up toll stations and extending the charging period in disguised form is not unrelated to the poor operating conditions of the expressway companies.

In fact, it is doubtful that the listed highway company’s “profiteering” level exceeds that of real estate companies. According to a survey by the reporter, public opinion often deter- mines the profitability of listed expressway companies with a “high gross profit margin”, but in fact “net asset yield” is a measure of the company’s efficiency in using its own capital, although the gross profit rate of listed expressway companies is very high. High, but the return on net assets is relatively low. According to the 2013 annual report of the 19 expressways listed by the reporter, the average return on net assets of 19 companies was about 8.46%, the highest rate was 14.49% for Ninghu Expressway, and the lowest was only 0.72% for Hunan.

Zhao Jian told this reporter that listed highway companies often subsidized the profits of some profitable expressways to the loss-making expressway. Overall, China’s expressway industry is not at a high profit level.

Is it feasible to reduce the tolls by building a “pay-as-you-go” highway for the state? “Road tolls gradually reduce the charging standards. This requires the support of the state financial system. However, the reality is that the state cannot afford to guarantee the gradual reduction of road charges.” Hu Fangjun said that now the construction of expressways, the central government has partially funded local financial No investment.

One person in the industry emphasized that there should be reasonable arguments and analysis to reduce or exempt freeway tolls. If the compulsory reduction or exemption of freeway tolls is tantamount to the “killing chickens and picking eggs” approach, it will not guarantee the normal operation of expressways, Bring to the “no one wants to build roads”.

Local interests become the system of control. Reducing tolls and bridges is actually a game that involves the interest of all parties. From the perspective of providing and using roads and bridges, it is the biggest difficulty in how to reasonably control the interest balance of road and bridge fees. However, it must be acknowledged that some local governments and road and bridge companies have “maximized” their interests in road and bridge tolls, and the practice of turning highways and bridges and other bridge and bridge facilities into their own profit-making tools is also very detrimental to reasonable reduction of road and bridge fees.

For example, some local governments have converted government repayment roads into operating toll roads. This has extended the time limit for fees and can use the highway to continue to “suck gold”. For example, in the previous Capital Airport Express, under the government loan repayment model, the Capital Airport’s high-speed toll construction turned into a commercial toll road for three years and re-qualified for 30 years.

In fact, this phenomenon was common before the “Special Clearance of Toll Roads” in 2011. For this practice, the national ministries and commissions issued a joint notice in April 2012 prohibiting the reimbursement of government highways in the name of institutional adjustments, asset restructurings, favorable financing, and other relevant provisions of the Regulations on the Administration of Toll Roads. Construction or approved, but not yet started construction of the government repayment of highways, into commercial highways, free to change the properties of the government repayment of highways.

For another example, some local highways have intensively set up toll booths, and there is a toll booth for the 20th highway, and even some highways have been blasted by two toll stations within a distance of no more than 5 kilometers. According to the “Regulations on the Management of Toll Roads” of the State, the distance between adjacent toll stations on the same main line of non-closed toll roads shall not be less than 50 kilometers. Obviously, unreasonable toll stations have collected more toll fees. In addition, although China has already stipulated that the secondary roads will not be charged, there are still problems with setting up toll stations in secondary roads in some places.

Of course, due to the unfavorable policy constraints and the lack of strict supervision and management, it has also helped increase the occurrence of phenomena such as intensively setting up toll booths, raising charging standards, and extending the charging period in disguised form. Although the Regulations on the Administration of Toll Roads had already been issued in 2004, during the special clean-up work on toll roads carried out from 2011 to 2012, 771 projects that required rectification were still found, and the illegal toll highway mileage was 3,706 kilometers. It can be seen that some unreasonable charges have emerged in the absence of supervision.

When policies and regulations over-constrain the main body of charging, the reduction or exemption of road tolls is also not feasible. At present, the charging period of China’s toll roads is determined based on the Regulations for the Administration of Toll Roads, which was implemented in 2004, and there are clear limits for 15, 20, 25, and 30 years.

In Hu Fangjun's view, the "Toll Road Management Regulations" has "overall constraints" in the charging period and there is an issue of over-constraint. “The toll collection period of expressways was clearly set, allowing the expressways to be fully repaid in more than 10-20 years, obviously increasing the operating pressure of expressway companies and raising the toll standards for expressways.” Hu Fangjun believes that this The emergence of policies has led to an irrational phenomenon: This generation has repaired the road, but also has to pay off debts, and the unreasonable cost amortization has resulted in higher charges.