Latin Infrastructure Grows, But Lags Asia: Norman F. Anderson CG/LA's President & CEO

Monday, February 25, 2008

Projects like the expansion of the Port of Buenaventura in Colombia and Cap Cana in the Dominican Republic are highlighted at the upcoming infrastructure conference in Miami. Latin America needs to show more strategic leadership in its infrastructure policies, a leading expert argues. Latin America's commodity boom is helping drive the growth in infrastructure, but the region is still spending eight times less on infrastructure than China, a leading expert says.

"Anything related to commodities is driving projects, and driving opportunities," says Norman Anderson, president and CEO of CG/LA Infrastructure, a U.S.-based consultancy. "Latin America is in its fifth year of an unparalleled economic expansion. This expansion is primarily driven by global commodity prices, but with average growth in the 5 percent range there is enormous significant investment in ports & logistics, electricity generation, highways and continued investment in digital infrastructure. "

Latin America invests on average only 1.5 percent of GDP in infrastructure.”The countries of the region need to recognize that, even though the level of infrastructure investment is rising, they need to work more closely together on projects like Latin American integration - the IIRSA project, for example - because China invests 8 times more in infrastructure per year, and India 4 times [more]," Anderson says.

INFRASTRUCTURE FORUM

CG/LA Infrastructure is organizing its sixth annual Latin American Leadership Forum in Miami in April to bring together governments and infrastructure, finance and other companies. The conference will highlight 50 strategic infrastructure projects from 17 countries in Latin America at a total value of between $40 billion and $50 billion.

"We feature projects for which there is immediate demand, because these are projects that are going forward - the São Paulo ring road, the Panama Canal, Colombia's port of Buenaventura and Valparaiso in Chile - but we are also focused on identifying critical projects that will both sustain this growth, and create wide opportunities for people," Anderson says. more...