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Singapore launches online marketplace for infrastructure projects
AN online portal that links up governments, developers and financiers has been launched by Infrastructure Asia, a government office set up by Enterprise Singapore and the Monetary Authority of Singapore to support infrastructure development.
Announcing its launch at the Asia Infrastructure Forum on Tuesday (Aug 2), Second Minister for Finance Indranee Rajah said the portal will serve as a marketplace to connect various parties interested to develop infrastructure projects in Asia and also to improve the visibility of the region’s infrastructure project pipeline.
With an estimated US$2 trillion required to build sustainable infrastructure in South-East Asia by 2030, private capital is needed to complement government spending, said Ms Indranee.
The public sector is already stepping up. The Singapore government will soon be issuing up to S$35 billion of green bonds to finance sustainable infrastructure projects by 2030, such as in new electric rail lines, and the Philippines and India have also announced that their governments will issue their own green bonds. But public funds have generally been diverted in the last 2 years to battle the Covid-19 pandemic, she noted.
Among the private sector, financial institutions and asset owners are placing more emphasis on deploying capital into projects that fulfil environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria.
“A major barrier to leveraging such exciting growth potential is the lack of visibility of project opportunities, the lack of awareness of the best-fit solutions available, and the lack of collaboration in bringing together complementary experts,” said Ms Indranee.
Developed to address this problem, this new online marketplace, called the InfraAsia Project Portal, would showcase regional infrastructure projects, and connect public and private sector parties who are interested to partner with each other and develop them.
Account holders of the portal can access project details, such as its value, owner, financiers and developers.
“Meeting the region’s infrastructure needs is a mammoth task. Projects are becoming increasingly complex as they involve multiple stakeholders and cut across numerous sectors and disciplines,” said Ms Indranee.
Infrastructure Asia and the International Finance Corporation are also working together on an energy efficiency aggregation platform to help owners of existing buildings to access the finance to retrofit their buildings.
One frequently missed opportunity in sustainable infrastructure development is in brownfield infrastructure, which are responsible for close to 80 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, said Ms Indranee.
This platform aims to address the problem of building owners’ reluctance in incurring the upfront expenditure, as well as individual buildings lacking the scale to attract institutional capital.
Source: https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/singapore-launches-online-marketplace-for-infrastructure-projects