Keynote Address by Robert Bestani at Strengthening Private Sector Participation and Investment in Physical Infrastructure Workshop

"Only the private sector can provide the trillions of investment dollars needed in the foreseeable future," said Robert Bestani, director general of ADB's Private Sector Operations Department (PSOD) at the ADBI workshop on Strengthening Private Sector Participation and Investment in Physical Infrastructure held in Tokyo from 19-22 November 2007.

Over the next 20 years, countries in Asia and the Pacific will need as much as $3.5 trillion in new infrastructure investment to keep their economies humming, an enormous sum that few can expect to meet without enthusiastic participation from the private sector. Private and public sector interests are reluctant to commit funds even close to that enormous figure for capital intensive and relatively risky infrastructure projects.

ADB is in a unique position to fill this vacuum. By leveraging its 40-year track record as an honest broker working with the region's governments, ADB can catalyze critical direct foreign investment. It can help stir up vast yet idle pools of private capital in the region's liquid financial institutions, and thereby secure its importance at the center of Asia's economic future. In particular, ADB is in a position to form public-private partnerships and turn them into a reality that attracts capital to headline infrastructure projects.

ADB offers its partners (both the project sponsors and the national governments) knowledge products that help them overcome regulatory and policy shortfalls that can stand in the way of that foreign investment. In addition to its important participation, it offers investors risk mitigation products and local currency protection; and it offers long experience in ensuring that environmental and other safeguards can be efficiently adhered to, a plus for investors who might otherwise shy away from an investment for fear of fruitless entanglements.

Download this Speech [ PDF 402KB | 34 pages ].