Asia needs to invest $26tn by 2030 to resolve a serious infrastructure shortage that threatens to hold back some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, the Asian Development Bank has warned.
This requires countries across the region to double total annual spending to about $1.7tn in areas ranging from transport to basic sanitation, the ADB says in a report.
The warning signals that even a big improvement in infrastructure in the past two decades has failed to keep pace with the rapid growth of economies, population and urbanisation. The shortfall is most acute outside China, which is already spending at more than 90 per cent of the levels it is projected to need.