Fact Sheet: Key Infrastructure Initiatives Supporting U.S. Economic Priorities Work in the G20 and APEC

Infrastructure investment is essential for achieving sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Having highly interconnected and dependable transportation networks, a reliable electric grid, and well-run and maintained water infrastructure means we can efficiently move goods to market, improve access to good jobs, and enhance the quality of life for our citizens. Infrastructure investment needs are huge and will require optimally leveraging existing financial resources, building government capacity to develop and execute investments under a coherent strategy, and improving coordination within government and with a full-range of stakeholders.

In Cairns, G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors recognized that increasing investment, particularly in infrastructure, is critical to boosting demand and lifting growth. They outlined a multi-year agenda to promote greater knowledge-sharing and facilitate infrastructure investment in emerging and developing countries and provided support for significant measures underway through the multilateral development banks (MDBs). This broad agenda includes:

• Creating the Global Infrastructure Initiative (GII), a global knowledge platform on infrastructure investment opportunities and best practices that will carry forward the G20 work on infrastructure over several years. The Initiative will work closely with governments, MDBs, and the private sector to disseminate best practices, address critical data gaps, and consolidate information on the pipeline of infrastructure projects around the world;

• Supporting the World Bank Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF), a significant new initiative that will help improve the domestic investment climate in developing countries, increase the number of bankable infrastructure projects, and increase the volume of resources available for investment in infrastructure. The GIF is designed to be an upstream platform to facilitate development of large, complex infrastructure projects by coordinating the multiple stakeholders (including the World Bank) involved in project preparation and financing; and

• Encouraging the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) to continue optimizing their balance sheets to increase the volume of resources available to finance infrastructure throughout the developing world. Reforms currently underway at these institutions will allow them to increase their lending capacities by 40-50 percent, or $11 billion in extra lending each year, much of which is likely to be devoted to the infrastructure sector.

In Beijing, APEC Finance Ministers committed to advance long-standing APEC work on infrastructure investment and financing, in particular through promoting interested members' capacity to engage in public-private partnerships (PPP).Well-designed PPP projects can lead to faster delivery and improved quality of infrastructure services, and provide value for tax payers by allocating risks and responsibilities to those who can most cost-effectively manage them. Specifically, Ministers:

• Endorsed the Implementation Roadmap to Develop Successful Infrastructure PPP Projects in the APEC Region, to assist government officials of APEC member economies to better understand, prepare, structure and implement infrastructure PPP projects and appropriate financing arrangements. This work advances the Multi-Year Plan on Infrastructure Development and Investment, endorsed under Indonesia's presidency of APEC in 2013;

• Encouraged interested member economies to set up their own PPP centers; and

• Welcomed the launch of the APEC PPP Experts Advisory Panel, which is an important resource to build the capacity of Indonesia's pilot PPP Center and to facilitate regional sharing of knowledge with other member economies and private sector dialogues under the Asia-Pacific Infrastructure Partnership.