Singapore’s Financial Sector – Positioning for the Upturn

Facilitating the Growth of Infrastructure Financing

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimated that Asia would need to spend about US$8 trillion over the next 10 years to maintain and build new infrastructure to support Asia’s growth. Singapore is poised to play a significant role in facilitating regional infrastructure financing, and a growing pool of local and international financial institutions have been expanding their project finance teams here to provide lending, advisory and structuring services to the region. In the capital markets, MAS has replicated the success of the real estate investment trusts (REITs) model for the infrastructure sector, by putting in place the Business Trust and project bond framework for developers to tap the capital markets in financing infrastructure projects.