Global Infrastructure Hub: Private infrastructure investment flat for eighth year in 2021

Private infrastructure investment was flat for an eighth consecutive year in 2021, according to Infrastructure Monitor 2022, published by the Global Infrastructure Hub on 12 October 2022. Primary-market investment was almost back to pre-pandemic levels, having held up through the initial COVID-19 shock in 2020. The longer trend is stagnation.

Eighty percent of private infrastructure investment went to high-income countries in 2021, while middle- and low-income countries continued a declining trend, the report says. It puts almost two-thirds of the world's infrastructure needs to 2035 in emerging economies, where financing gaps are widest and climate vulnerability is greatest.

Green investment reached a record 60% of total private infrastructure investment in 2021, the report says. Renewable energy drew almost half of all private investment. The report treats infrastructure as an attractive and resilient asset class in periods of high inflation and economic uncertainty, and calls on policymakers to do more to lift private participation.