Ah, Samarkand, city of (amongst others) Timur (Tamerlane) … Xuan Zang loved the place when he visited in 630 as did ibn Battuta in 1333, less so Genghis Khan in 1220 and Konstantin von Kaufman in 1868. James Elroy Flecker may not have visited at all in 1913. More recently, in a country characterized as […]

Labour will win the UK general election on 4 July (hey, I’m going out on a limb here) but, in doing so, has allowed the undeserving Conservatives to salt the earth that Labour will inherit. There is to be no new borrowing, no cuts to services and no increases in the major taxes. So where […]

Today, the tenth World Water Forum opens in Nusa Dua, Bali. High on the list for discussion will be how should cleaner and more reliable supplies of fresh water and treatment / recycling of waste water be financed? And can delegates draw inspiration from ancient Balinese Warrior Frogs to make it happen? All governments’ long […]

Maritime Transit Corridors – think canals and land bridges – have made world trade go round – or rather, enabled it to not go round. The Panama canal saves 15,000 km when sailing between one contiguous US coast to the other; the Suez canal saves 8,900 kilometres when sailing between the Arabian Sea and London; […]

Today HK’s Civil Engineering and Development Department shares with Kowloon City District Council a proposal relating to the much delayed light rail line to run the length of the old runway at Kai Tak. In terms of the timing, the proposal is still at only a preliminary stage so the timeframe for building the system […]

The latest news on Manila airport is that the San Miguel – led consortium, SMC – SAP, has won the bid to redevelop Ninoy Aquino International Airport on a PPP basis. Other members of the consortium are the less well – known RMM Asian Logistics and RLW Aviation Development with airport expertise coming from Incheon. […]

Back in 2016, Jamie Dimon dismissed the annual Davos meets as billionaires telling millionaires about how the middle class should work harder to help the poorest class (at least that’s what X / Twitter tells me so it must be true). It was easy to be similarly sceptical about global efforts on climate change when […]

Congrats to the HK Trade Development Council on hosting this year’s Belt & Road summit ahead of next month’s Forum in Beijing. It is ten years to the month since President Xi Jinping launched what was to become the Belt and Road Initiative in a speech in Kazakhstan (which promptly appointed itself the “buckle” in […]

Congrats to the Ministry of Law, UNCITRAL Academy, Singapore International Arbitration Centre, Singapore International Mediation Centre, Singapore International Mediation Institute, Singapore International Commercial Court, the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore, Singapore International Dispute Resolution Academy, Maxwell Chambers, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Singapore branch, Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre plus the International Chamber […]

As the G20 meet this coming weekend at the Bharat Mandapam International Exhibition Convention Centre (IECC) in New Delhi, leaders will be reviewing progress on the Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) signed with South Africa and Indonesia last year and with Vietnam this year whereby the developed World would finance those countries to build more […]

The UK water industry, notably Severn – Trent, is the latest example of unacceptable delivery standards – in the case of water, its overflowing storm drains and polluted beaches – alongside fat shareholder returns and high senior management pay arising out of having privatised much of its infrastructure some time ago. Ongoing high Non Revenue […]

Andrew sat down recently with Joseph Jacobelli at the Asia Climate Finance podcast to discuss progress on financing energy transition – how to replace coal fired power generation with renewables – in Asia. The potential deal flow is enormous. But in order to make it happen and save the World, major hurdles need to be […]

As well as meetings with fund managers in HCM, I’m just back from the Mekong delta, access to which is being transformed by new infrastructure. Existing bridges across various distributaries at Cao Lanh, My Thuan and Rach Mieu will shortly be joined by second, equally big, ones currently under construction alongside My Thuan and Rach […]

Last week, HK Chief Executive John Lee visited BYD Auto in Shenzhen which may have a solution to the long neglected problem of moving residents (who are now moving in) up and down Hong Kong’s old runway at Kai Tak. Until 2020, they were expecting a monorail. They currently have only a puny bus and […]

Andrew writes in today’s South China Morning Post: Gary Lai writes today (12 April) that HK can learn from New York City when it comes to making HK more pedestrian friendly; and in using Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to do so. I advise on infrastructure finance including PPPs and I disagree on both counts. First, […]