Fuelled by the growing gap in global infrastructure, recent developments in Asia have spurred an increase in regional infrastructure investments. National governments, international organisations and regional institutions have established their own agendas, resulting in an imbalance of financial investment and infrastructure development, calling for a growing need for communication and dialogues.
Thus, GIZ SCSI cooperated with the China Academy of West Region Development (CAWD) of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou to convene a roundtable meeting bringing together various experts and stakeholders of government institutions, think tanks and regional infrastructure investment initiatives. These include PR China’s “Belt and Road” Initiative, the Investment Plan for Europe, Japan’s Partnership for Quality Infrastructure and RoK’s Eurasia Initiative.
From 11-12 September 2015, four sessions on diverging national and regional infrastructure initiatives, the relevance of regional cooperation, establishing institutional networks, and creating future opportunities fostered cross-programme dialogue and understanding.
Key take-aways from the roundtable are concentrated around the growing importance of Eurasian countries within the proposed investment schemes, the relevance of comprehensible infrastructure development for achieving inclusive growth and the relative larger benefit of infrastructure investment to small countries. Participants furthermore stressed the need for increased transparency of the programs in order to achieve the goal of a common win-win game amongst all regional investment plans.