According to the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific – ESCAP’s long-running flagship publication – developing economies are on track to record an overall growth rate of 5.8 percent in 2017, compared with 5.4 percent the previous year. For 2018 and 2019, these economies are projected to grow by 5.5 percent, with …
How large are the benefits of transportation infrastructure projects, and what explains these benefits? Before 1870, India barely had railroads. It didn’t have many canals either, and only a small percentage of the population lived along the three main rivers. So when goods needed to be transported, people used steer, which could pull freight about …
Princeton researchers recommend targeted geoengineering to preserve continental ice sheets. “Geoengineering interventions can be targeted at specific negative consequences of climate change, rather than at the entire planet,” postdoctoral research associate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Michael Wolovick said. The ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica will contribute more to sea-level rise this century than …
California’s Department of Water Resources was blasted in an independent report for having a culture of complacency and incompetence that contributed to last year’s near-disaster at Oroville Dam. The full 584 page independent forensic team report is here. The agency’s largest water storage site and the nation’s tallest dam at Lake Oroville fell into disrepair. …
The United States faces a looming crisis over its deteriorating water infrastructure, and fixing it will be a monumental and expensive task. In Los Angeles alone, about two thirds of the city’s 7,000 miles of water pipes are more than 60 years old — and nearing the end of their useful lives. Water main breaks …
Everyone’s heard the story about the government’s promise to spend $1 trillion on fixing America’s aging critical infrastructure. But there’s another big money story that few investors know of… Trump’s trillion-dollar pledge won’t come close to fixing our infrastructure. It’ll take $3.6 trillion to make this happen. And in the midst of this infrastructure crisis, …
Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative is part and parcel of President Xi Jinping’s strategy to solidify China’s emergence as a great economic and military power, a leading expert on Asian economies said Wednesday. In May, 2017, China’s President Xi Jinping has pledged $124 billion (£96bn) for the scheme, known as the Belt and Road initiative. …
Nearly a fifth of the $94 trillion in global infrastructure investment needed by 2040 risks being unfunded if current spending trends continue according to the G20-backed Global Infrastructure Hub. To close the spending gap, annual infrastructure spending needs to rise to 3.5 percent from 3 percent of global gross domestic product. The GIH, set up …
China plans to turn the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau greater bay area into the world’s largest bay area in terms of GDP by 2030. This would mean surpassing Tokyo, New York and the San Francisco bay area economies. In 2016 combined regional GDP of the greater Guandong-Hong Kong and Macao bay area was 9.35 trillion yuan (US$1.38 …
To speed up infrastructure projects, officials are preparing to overhaul the federal environmental review and permitting system, which they blame for costly delays. Trump asked advisers whether they could collapse that process, which he said takes at least 10 years, down to four months. “But we’ll be satisfied with a year,” Trump said. “It won’t …
China One Belt, One Road is promising more than $1 trillion in infrastructure and spanning more than 60 countries from now to 2021. * power plants in Pakistan are part of an expected $46 billion worth of investment * tunnels and bridges and a 260-mile railway in Laos is a $6 billion project * hundreds …
