Infrastructure investment is something that always happens. The emphasis sometimes changes driven by changing demographics, for example to social infrastructure and there are other forces that sometimes come into play, but the focus needs to be on how we are investing in projects and how to get the best out of the assets; it’s all about how to get the best out of the resources we have.

This becomes difficult when trying to entice the private sector into projects that have competition for the same infrastructure type; there are a number of competing ports and airports in the market and investing in those requires good due diligence and conviction that you are either able to maximize your revenue from that investment or minimize your risk.

In terms of the finance and execution models for projects, we are seeing a lot more design and build, which means some of the risks and time frames are shifting away from the public sector.

In the absence of comprehensive PPP legislation, consultants have to work very closely with clients, that is the construction companies, to analyse where they can achieve value in projects and it’s the highest value models clients are looking at.  The vision is still there but we as the private sector need to pace ourselves to minimize our risks.

The essential thing is to have the necessary infrastructure in place at the time it is needed, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we need to build something new, we just need to get the best value out of what you have now to make sure you have the right platform for continued development.

One of the key drivers we are seeing is the issue of sustainability and the sustainability agenda. This is going to touch on a lot of downstream activities and you need the mindset to drive this through the whole lifecycle of a project.

A lot of infrastructure has been built over the last 40 to 50 years in the region and now asset management is becoming a priority, just looking at how we are investing, re-investing, maintaining and updating those and sustainability is a large part of that.

Over the last decade the world has changed, and it will change again before 2020 and 2030 when the current master plans are due to mature.