KPMG Singapore

The #WorldBank report - Infrastructure Foundations: From Current Assets to Future Growth maps physical infrastructure stocks across ~200 countries, derives social rates of return by sector, and builds a prioritisation framework for investment allocation. As infrastructure advisory professional in Asia Pacific, five things stood out to me: 1. Asia is not one story — it’s several East Asia and Pacific punches above its weight on infrastructure capital relative to GDP. South Asia and Southeast Asia tell a very different story — systematically under-infrastructured relative to income levels. The gaps within-country in energy and transport access are often as large as cross-country ones. 2. The efficiency ratios pitch to private capital 98% of countries globally show energy efficiency ratios above 1 — meaning social returns exceed financing costs. In South and Southeast Asia, these ratios are consistently high. It’s the quantified answer to the question private infrastructure funds keep asking: where is there genuine return potential that hasn’t been arbitraged away? The data now exists to answer that with rigour. 3. Local currency financing is the hidden bottleneck The report is direct: low efficiency ratios in developing economies are driven primarily by high borrowing costs, not weak project fundamentals. In Asia, this maps precisely onto the local currency financing gap. The currency mismatch destroys returns. 4. The energy-transport complementarity is an ASEAN infrastructure story The report finds that balanced energy + transportation investment strategies consistently outperform single-sector approaches. For ASEAN — where industrial corridor development, logistics network buildout, and power sector reform are happening simultaneously — this complementarity is the entire thesis. Integrated infrastructure platforms, not standalone project finance, are gaining traction with regional DFIs and institutional investors. 5. Digital is the emerging frontier Digital infrastructure shows high efficiency ratios. However, digital returns are network-dependent and require energy infrastructure as a prerequisite. For Asia’s data centre boom, this means the energy transition and digital infrastructure investment theses are not parallel tracks. They are the same track. This report - quantifies the investment case by sector and country, identifies where borrowing cost reduction through concessional or blended structures has the highest leverage, and make the case for mixed-sector strategies to institutional investors instead of siloed asset classes. Private capital will not flow at the scale Asia needs through moral argument alone. It flows when risk-adjusted returns are visible, comparable, and credible. This report moves the needle on all three. #InfrastructureAdvisory #AsiaInfrastructure #BlendedFinance #LocalCurrencyFinancing #EnergyTransition #ASEAN #PrivateCapital #DevelopmentFinance #PPP KPMG Singapore

Happy to share that KPMG Singapore has been named a finalist in the LinkedIn Talent Awards 2025 for “𝗔𝗜 𝗣𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿: 𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺” (𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺). This reflects how we’ve been using AI across search, messaging, and InMail to support better hiring outcomes. Thank you to the TA team for the consistent hard work and commitment behind this. Winner announcement coming soon. 😎 #LinkedInTalentAwards #TalentAcquisition #KPMGSingapore Grace Ong (IHRP-CP) | Angie Lee | Foong Mei Shee (IHRP-CP) | Jasmine L. | Alicia L. | Sheryl Chai | Ashton Wai Houtian | Benjamin Lim | Neil Yang | Angelina Pereira | Freda Phang | Javier Wu | Amanda Lunardhi | Sen Ng | Hui Yi Ong | Christabel Ang | Bryan Tan Eleni Garidis | Zihao Chua