Yemisi Izuora
A new World Bank group Report has observed that Private investment in infrastructural projects in Nigeria and other developing countries declined sharply in 2016, falling by 37 per cent compared to 2015.
According to the report, a large drop in investment commitments in Turkey, which in 2015 saw three mega-projects reach financial closure, including the $35.6bn IGA Airport in Istanbul, contributed significantly to the year-on-year decline.
The World Bank’s annual report of the Private Participation in Infrastructure Database noted that without the Istanbul airport project, the decline in private investment in infrastructure would be eight per cent.
The $71bn of investment commitments in 2016 also represented a substantial slide from the $121bn average annual investment charted during the years 2011 to 2015, the global financial body added.
It said further that the overall trend of lower investment might be attributed to three countries, which received more than half of investment commitments for infrastructure projects with private participation in recent years, namely, Turkey, India, and Brazil.
The PPIDB looks at infrastructure projects in 135 developing countries, but only a few dozen countries see significant private sector investment in infrastructure. A 43 per cent increase in commitments in East Asia and a significant pick-up in the renewable energy sector were bright spots in an otherwise sluggish year.