Between 2010 and 2014, infrastructure spending from both the public and private sectors made up 5.7 per cent of the country’s GDP, compared to the 2-3 per cent of its neighbouring countries.12 In Asia, Vietnam ranks second only to China (6.8 per cent). [...] IDA loans and grants previously financed a majority of Vietnam’s infrastructure projects.13 The need to diversify financial resources for infrastructure development in Vietnam is therefore urgent, causing the country to welcome regional infrastructure initiatives. [...] The annual budget for Japan’s infrastructure exports has since 2017 nearly doubled from ¥110 billion to ¥200 billion (approximately US$1.8 billion).15 In order to operationalise the economic dimension of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy, the US Congress passed the Better Utilization of Investment Leading to Development (BUILD) Act in October 2018. [...] The initiative promotes high-quality infrastructure partnerships and assistance in Asia through the collaboration between Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and ADB to increase the supply of funding and promote relevant international standards. [...] With the target of providing US$200 billion within the period 2015-2020, the scope of this initiative was extended from Asia “to the world,” and the range of projects went beyond infrastructure in a narrow sense to cover different projects, ranging from extracting natural resources to building hospitals.19 Nevertheless, the PQI also has certain limitations.
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- 10
- Published in
- Singapore
