Prospects for Public Infrastructure Projects, The Americas

Infrastructure investment in North America is expected accelerate in the coming years as both the US and Canada are looking to strengthen their post-pandemic economies and half carbon emissions in the next decades. In the US, President Joe Biden’s administration is expected to pass a multi-trillion infrastructure bill in the coming months, with a focus on transportation and green energy projects, while in Canada, the federal government continues to push forward its long-term infrastructure plan ‘Investing in Canada Plan.’ Last year, Trudeau government announced it will fast-track funding delivered via the federal Gas Tax Fund to help municipalities make progress with their infrastructure projects. The federal government also announced earlier this year it will issue as much as C$50 billion in “green bonds” to finance infrastructure projects during the 2021-2022 fiscal year.

In Latin America, which is facing a new electoral cycle and an economy deeply devastated by a damaging new wave of COVID-19 infections and renewed lockdown measures, the prospects for governments to accelerate infrastructure works in the region this year remain weak. Although higher commodity prices amid improving external condition are welcoming news, especially for resource-oriented exporters, public debt issues, supply chain disruptions , rising inflation, and growing political and social tensions due to soaring unemployment and poverty levels, will continue to hold back foreign and private investment in infrastructure in 2021. Limits on economic activity are likely to stay in place in some form in several major countries over the rest of this year to ease strains in hospitals, with most of economic boost likely to come at the end of this year and early 2022.

Given the increased focus on infrastructure investment as a potential path to generate growth momentum to offset the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on economic activity, the publisher has assessed the potential for governments to succeed with such efforts as well as illustrating scenarios reflecting this

This report provides a detailed analysis of the prospects for an acceleration in public infrastructure investment, including a listing of key projects tracked by the publisher.

Scope

• This report provides an overall assessment of governments’/countries’ potential to move forward with (accelerate) their public infrastructure works by considering a series of key factors: the size of the pipeline of projects in each country, the composition of this pipeline in terms of stages of development, the political momentum behind infrastructure investment, the state of the government’s finance, and the economic recovery outlook.
• It also provides analysis based on the publisher's construction projects showing total project values and analysis by stage of development from announcement to execution.
• The analysis of the size of the project pipeline includes all public and public-private partnership projects as tracked by the publisher (including roads, bridges, railways, airports, ports, power, water and sewage infrastructure construction projects). It also provides an analysis by all projects at all stages of development from announcement to execution.
• The top infrastructure construction projects in tender, award and execution stages are listed by sector and value.
• It also lays out scenarios (“scheduled”, “risk”, and “accelerated”) to illustrate the possible variation in the potential for spending on the pipeline of projects

Reasons to Buy

• Assess all major markets in the region based on their prospects for accelerating infrastructure investment.
• Gain insight into the key policies and issues that will impact the prospects for public infrastructure projects.
• Review scenarios of potential spending on the project pipeline, and access a listing of the key projects being tracked.
• Plan campaigns by country based on specific project opportunities and align resources to the most attractive markets.