Infrastructure Asia (InfraAsia) was set up by Enterprise Singapore and the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a one-stop platform to facilitate regional infrastructure collaboration between development partners, investors and government agencies.

The Singaporean government initiative was launched at the 8th Asia-Singapore Infrastructure Roundtable (ASIR) on October 23, 2018 by then-finance minister Heng Swee Keat.

The city-state was the third largest investor in Cambodia for the interval between the August 5, 1994 promulgation of the old investment law and December 31, 2021, accounting for $2.7 billion or a 6.5 per cent share of the $41.0 billion in cumulative foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows reported over the 10,011-day period.

ASEAN’s smallest country was behind only the Greater China region – comprising mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan – at $18.0 billion or 43.9 per cent of the total, and South Korea ($4.9 billion; 11.9%), according to a joint report by the National Bank of Cambodia and the Council for the Development of Cambodia.

IA executive director Lavan Thiru sat down for an interview with The Post’s Rann Reuy during his week-long trip to Cambodia to discuss the agency’s local projects and ambitions.

What does IA specialise in, and where does it operate?

We are currently active in six markets: the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam in ASEAN, as well as Bangladesh and India in South Asia.

IA brings handy management resources to the table – for one, we facilitate connections. The sheer variety of possible approaches to undertaking projects could leave unequipped officials befuddled. You need to work with a trusted partner and that’s where we come in – we’re very balanced and have no hidden agendas.

We recommend pairings that we believe will ensure the success of projects, although in the end, we leave it to the governments and the private companies to reach any arrangements.

Do you have any interesting news concerning Cambodia that you would like to share?

Yes, now is a very interesting time for Cambodia, and the hugeand growing number of opportunities that the country offers. Statistics indicate that Singapore in 2022 ranked among the top three investors in Cambodia, as it has in previous years, which I see as very positive.

We have so many solutions that we could bring into the Cambodian infrastructure market, and we hope to do so by working with local partners.

What local partners are you working with now?

We started out working very closely with the public sector – the Ministry of Economy and Finance is a good partner, and the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation is a very close partner, as is the Ministry of Environment. And, there are a couple of other agencies like EdC (Electricite du Cambodge) that we hope to work with as well someday.

But as our activities in Cambodia pick up, we’ll need to move further beyond merely collaborating with the government – we’d also like to work with the private sector, to achieve our main objective of enabling more bankable projects to move forward.

Regardless of how many public or private partners we have, we want to identify solutions that could involve our Singapore-based ecosystem.

We’re happy to team up with local partners and find even more opportunities as more information becomes available. Singapore-based companies are also working with local partners here as well, and I believe that there are plenty of very positive stories to tell.

How involved should private firms be in the infrastructure industry for optimal economic development?

Nations are undergoing massive infrastructure development and it is very difficult for governments to fully pay for it. This situation is not unique to Cambodia and the best thing to do would be to strike a public-private sector balance and maximise the risk-return trade-off for private companies to enter the infrastructure space. Regional countries are also looking for the private sector to play a bigger role in infrastructure. The Philippines has introduced enabling provisions for PPPs (public-private partnerships), much like Cambodia, as well as Vietnam.

That’s why we believe so strongly in our growing involvement in the infrastructure world. And, we’re so glad that Cambodia has been able to benefit from our work as well.

Nations are undergoing massive infrastructure development, and it’s very difficult for governments to pay for it all – and the situation is not unique to Cambodia.

Regional countries are looking for the private sector to have a bigger role in infrastructure. The Philippines has introduced enabling provisions for PPP (public-private partnerships), much like Cambodia, as well as Vietnam.

You said that IA is active in four ASEAN countries, but did not mention its home nation of Singapore. Why not?

We were set up with a very specific mandate: to identify opportunities in the region that align with Singapore-based companies’ strengths, whether locally- or foreign-owned.

And then we have what we call “third-country collaborators”, or companies in other markets that partner with Singapore-based firms to do work regionally.

Could you briefly describe the current infrastructure-technology landscape?

Infrastructure technology, or infratech, will definitely be a big area of focus for IA going forward, and we think it’ll be the single most important factor allowing development cycles to be leapfrogged, such as how certain countries largely skipped over wired telephony and went directly to mobile phones.

We can also tackle electricity demand challenges, by building up solar power and greening the grid.

Building-decarbonisation also offers big opportunities – energy-efficient rooftop solar panel systems, data-gathering sensors and other infratech solutions can be leveraged to decarbonise the existing stock of buildings.

How do you see ASEAN’s recovery road to post-Covid development?

All ASEAN countries are facing very similar challenges, such as food security, which we need to improve following Covid-19 and the linked supply chain disruptions.

Then there are logistics concerns: for instance, ensuring adequate access to temperature-sensitive medications is not easy – it requires a lot of maintenance-heavy and capital-intensive cold chain equipment.

Effective supply chain and logistics management will be key. Although significant investment will be required in this domain, we’re all in it together. We need to find ways to do this, and there are very, very good solutions sitting in Singapore that could lend a helping hand.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.