Substack

Friday, April 3, 2015

Private participation in infrastructure

The World Bank's Private Participation in Infrastructure database has data on over 5000 projects in 139 low and middle-income countries in the 1990-2014 period and covering an investment of $2.3 trillion. Here are three graphics covering six countries who make up nearly 60% of the investments.

1. Brazil and India are the biggest destinations for private investment in infrastructure. Clearly, the Chinese infrastructure investment driven growth has been largely under-written by the Government, with private participation being just about $130 bn, a small proportion of the massive investments made in infrastructure.
2. Telecoms and power sector predominate in attracting investments. This is understandable given that both sectors are the most amenable to cost-recovery through tariffs. The share of private participation in water and sewerage is universally low, being the lowest in India. China has been successful in attracting private participation in transport sector, which formed 44% of all their private investments.
3. Greenfield projects take the lion's share of private investments across all countries. In India, telecoms and power takes up almost all the greenfield projects and transport that of concession projects. But the country's performance with dis-investments has been dismal.  
Interestingly, Brazil, the leader in attracting private investments, has a more balanced distribution of investments across sectors and type of contracts. 

No comments: