China
plans to spend 600 billion
yuan
($96 billion) building railway infrastructure next year, with 60 percent of the investment going to high-speed projects, a senior executive from China's leading rail and highway builder said.
To support the slackening domestic
economy
, China has raised its planned total railway investment by 20 billion yuan to 630 billion yuan for 2012, the country's Ministry of Railways said in October.
Beijing has also approved 25 rail projects that could be worth more than 700 billion yuan as part of measures to support the broader
economy
, currently grappling with its slackest period of growth since early 2009.
DBS Vickers report today says : " With the expected slowdown in the domestic economy, we would prefer to go for stocks with exposure to the emerging economies or global. These include stocks that are potential beneficiaries to a recovery in the Chinese economy - Capitamall Asia, HPH Trust, Midas, Sound Global and Wilmar, which we have highlighted earlier. On the global front, our picks are Keppel Corp and SembCorp Marine.
MORE URBAN RAIL PROJECTS APPROVED BY NDRC27 Nov 2012
Strictly for OSPL clients only
Dear TRs,
Chinaâs National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) posted three new urban rail project approvals on its website yesterday. Total approved investments amount to approximately CNY75.2b.
This was preceded by 25 urban rail project approvals in Sep 2012 which amassed to investment amounts totalling some CNY842.7b (please refer to our report on Midas dated 10 Sep 2012).
We believe that these events highlight the continued recovery of Chinaâs rail transport sector, given the governmentâs commitment to develop the sector in a bid to bolster its economy and address the transportation needs of its people.
In our opinion, Midas Holdings (Midas) would be a key beneficiary of this trend, as it is a key supplier of aluminium alloy extrusion profiles for the rail transport sector in China. We highlighted in our 15 Nov 2012 report that Midasâ management was exploring potential new contract orders amounting to CNY500-550m in the metro and international rail transport space. The announcement of new contract wins would likely be a re-rating catalyst for the stock.
Maintain BUY on Midas, with an unchanged fair value estimate of S$0.50.