Financing strongInfrastructurestrong A Spectrum of Country Approaches.pdfVIP

Financing Infrastructure: A Spectrum of Country Approaches Sophia Chong and Emily Poole* Over recent decades, there has been a shift away from public infrastructure financing towards private infrastructure financing, particularly in advanced economies. In this article, infrastructure financing in four countries – China, India, Australia and the United Kingdom – is examined to illustrate the different approaches taken by governments to finance infrastructure and encourage private financing. In all four countries, public financing of infrastructure remains significant, ranging from one-third in the United Kingdom to almost all financing in China. Introduction sector financing can play a larger role. Traditionally, the predominant source of private financing for The question of how to channel global savings infrastructure has been bank funding, particularly towards long-term financing for investment, syndicated loans, but over the past few years a and infrastructure investment in particular, has number of banks (principally those headquartered in been receiving greater attention in a number of advanced economies) have been reducing lending international forums, including the Group of Twenty to strengthen their balance sheets following the (G20) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation