Transit-Plan Prescription for Disappearing Detroit

February 7, 2010 | By MIKE HALE (NYtimes.com)

The biggest jolt in “Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City” comes as the director of Madrid’s subway and light-rail system talks about the importance of infrastructure. (Maybe “jolt” is too strong.) Discussing Spain’s ambitious high-speed rail system, he says countries that neglect their infrastructure experience “a slow decline in importance and their weight in the world.” Cut to Detroit’s imposing Michigan Central Station, sitting in abandoned, broken-windowed splendor. It doesn’t look like decline — it looks like whatever comes next.

This new installment of PBS’s “Blueprint America” project, Monday night on most stations, is about plans to revitalize Detroit by reviving its once thriving but now nearly nonexistent public transportation system (which was, of course, destroyed by the hometown auto industry). But despite all the earnest talk of light rail getting people back downtown, what lingers are the eerily quiet images of the former Motor City.

Read full article

The Importance of Project Preparation

January 26th, 2010 | By Norman F. Anderson, CG/LA Infrastructure

Latin America is on the verge of catalyzing a sustained pipeline of good - or ever better - projects through feasibility study funds available through CAF, the IDB and the IFC, along with local funds in Mexico and Brasil's development banks. Just a few short years ago USTDA was the only game in town with a budget for Latin America of less than $10 million/year. Today total available funding is in the range of $250 million. From 2008 to 2009, CAF's ProInfra Fund alone saw a 36% increase in funded feasibility studies throughout Latin America, totalling US$10,581,834, putting 20+ new projects into the pipeline. Companies and project sponsors can gain access both to the pipeline of good projects created with increasing velocity by the 6 feasibility funds covering the region, as well as to the decision-makers overseeing the funds at the 8th Annual Latin American leadership Forum.

Read full article

U.S. says wind could power 20 percent of eastern grid

For the 20 percent wind scenario to work, billions must be spent on installing wind towers on land and sea and about 22,000 miles of new high-tech power lines to carry the electricity to cities, according to the study from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

"Twenty percent wind is an ambitious goal," said David Corbus, the project manager for the study. "We can bring more wind power online, but if we don't have the proper infrastructure to move that power around, it's like buying a hybrid car and leaving it in the garage,"

The private sector cannot fund all the needed spending, so a big chunk would have to come from the federal government through programs such as loan guarantees, Corbus said.

The Obama administration is already dedicating billions of dollars to double the amount of electricity produced by wind and other renewables energy sources by January 2012.

The Interior Department will decide this spring whether to approve the Cape Wind project off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. That project, long delayed because of local opposition, would provide electricity to about 400,000 homes.

Read full article

The role of ECA’s in Latin American infrastructure

By Norman Anderson, President & CEO, CG/LA Infrastructure, LLC

Despite a turbulent year in financial markets, ECAs increased their support to Latin America by 16%, over 10 billion dollars, in sectors such as air transportation, water, railroads, oil & gas, and manufacturing in 2009. The Ex-Im Bank of the US nearly doubled its lending in response to the financial crisis, reaching a total of $21 billion last year. In addition, Latin America currently accounts for 20% of all activities of the Ex-Im Bank of the United States, which reached maximum investment for the second time in the past five years. Meanwhile, Export Development Canada recently opened its fourth office in Peru to explore opportunities in the mining, energy, infrastructure, and telecom sectors...

Read full Article

Argentine Bonds Forecast to Recoup Losses by Swap

January 18th, 2010 | by Drew Benson

Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Argentine bonds, the worst- performing emerging-market securities this year, will recoup losses as the government moves ahead with plans to restructure $20 billion of defaulted debt in February, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The extra yield investors demand to buy Argentine bonds instead of U.S. Treasuries will fall to as low 6.31 percentage points from 7.35 points on Jan. 15, said Pierre-Yves Bareau, who helps manage more than $7 billion as the head of emerging-market debt at JPMorgan Asset Management in London. The spread had widened as President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner sought to fire central bank President Martin Redrado over a government plan to use $6.6 billion of reserves to cover debt payments.

The gap “will recede,” Bareau said in an interview. “We think it will go back to prior levels a bit before the restructuring.”

Investors are growing confident Argentina will go forward with the proposed debt swap as Finance Secretary Hernan Lorenzino prepares to meet this week with holders of defaulted bonds in Italy, Germany and London. The transaction would enable Argentina to return to international capital markets for the first time since its 2001 default on $95 billion of debt.

Read full article