The Hong Kong – Zhuhai – Macau bridge opened this week, the latest in a flurry of enormous infrastructure projects amidst Beijing’s Greater Bay Area (GBA) initiative to enhance collaboration across the three different jurisdictions of the Pearl River Delta. As I opined on Swiss TV and radio earlier this week, the GBA is needed […]

In her policy address, Carrie Lam has proposed spending US$64 billion on land reclamation east of Lantau – but, over a twenty year time frame, the need for this depends entirely on the assumption that immigration to HK will continue whereas it is more likely to fall away as the Greater Bay Area initiative integrates […]

Infrastructure serves various purposes apart from the obvious provision of transport, power, water, communications, etc. Most dramatically, it can help alleviate poverty which in this past quarter century has declined in spectacular fashion in China (which comprises most of East Asia & Pacific per the World Bank in its updated report to be issued on […]

The Expert Witness Institute has applied for registration of a branch in Singapore. It held its inaugural seminar there on “The Role of an Expert in Dispute Resolution” on 18 September. The event was hosted by Professor Leslie Chew, Dean of Law at Singapore University of Social Sciences; Sir Martin Spencer, Chairman of the Board […]

GBRW, based out of London and Singapore, sources experts for disputes. Writing in their monthly newsletter, Andrew predicted that plenty of disputes would arise from China’s Belt & Road Initiative – although where they are resolved is not so clear. Read the article here GBRW Aug 18.

Research from Carl-Johan Dalgaard and his colleagues at the University of Copenhagen demonstrates that the density of ancient Roman roads at a given point in Europe strongly correlates with present-day prosperity. Often originally built for military – i.e. not necessarily economic – reasons, today entire cities are located on them. Taking into account increases in real estate […]

Amongst other qualifications, Andrew is a Fellow of the HK Institute of Directors. This month’s edition of the Institute’s The 21st Century Director magazine leads with an article by Andrew on HKIoD mag issue 24 (pp 66 – 67): essentially, BRI is at an inflexion point where push back in the short term should lead […]

What is bad news for the French government could be good news for the British one. News is just in from EDF that scheduled completion of the 1,650 MW third EPR unit being built at Flamanville overlooking the Channel Islands has been pushed back yet again. Originally set to be up and running by 2012 […]

Andrew returned to RTHK Radio 3’s Backchat programme on Friday. Hosted by Danny Gittings and Paul Zimmerman, Andrew joined shareholder activist David Webb, past President of the HK Institute of Surveyors Raymond Chan and Director, ACE Centre for Business and Economic Research Andy Kwan to debate whether the HK government’s infrastructure spending is creating white […]

Andrew joined a timely roundtable at the Four Seasons in HK. His contribution was to ask why, with so much demand for, and so much supply of, capital, the volume of deals actually closed was not, in fact, much higher? The answer, as always of course, is that Projects first need to be Properly Prepared, […]

Elon Musk has made his name by undertaking to do the unthinkable. Investors argue that, even when he misses his targets, he may change the market and reap first mover advantage. There are the rockets and electric cars, of course, But last year he undertook to build the world’s biggest battery, the 100 MW Hornsdale […]

It’s brutal. Back in 2007, Singapore Airlines chose to not buy but lease five Airbus A380s.  The operating leases ran for ten years and last year SQ handed two back to the German lessor, Dr. Peters.  Dr. Peters (no, not a rich medic) has shipping and real estate interests but nine of its 19 aircraft […]

So, Mahathir Mohamad wants to scrap the Singapore – Kuala Lumpur high speed rail project which he costs at $28 billion. The agreement to build the 350 km line was signed by the two governments in 2016 and four consortia are due to submit bids by December with commercial operations set for 2026. If Singapore […]

The Task Force on Land Supply dare not even mention this as an option but Beijing could earn huge local and international goodwill by having the PLA relinquish half its land, as Andrew writes in the South China Morning Post.