BUILDING THE FUTURE

摘要

In Asia, around 5% of GDP is invested in infrastructure, said Cesar Canedo-Arguelles, CEO at Corporacion Interamericana para el Financiamiento de Infraestructura (CIFI), a Panama-based development bank that provides financing and advisory services to small and medium-sized infrastructure projects in Latin America. "In Latin America the figure is much lower, but that is where we need to be," he said. Yet despite the need for such significant investment, in Latin America - as elsewhere - infrastructure projects face a particular challenge securing funding from banks in the short term, said Canedo-Arguelles. This is because under the latest iteration of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's regulations, banks will be required to hold more capital against such long-term financing and the construction risk it entails - especially in the mid-market, where CIFI operates.