The 10th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) was held in Beijing recently. Erik Berglof, Chief Economist of AIIB, highlighted the immense and growing global demand for infrastructure investment, calling for coordinated action to bridge critical gaps.
Berglof noted that around 700 million people worldwide still lack access to electricity, 2.2 billion are without clean water, 3.5 billion do not have basic sanitation, and more than 1 billion live over a kilometer away from an all-purpose road.
He emphasized that beyond building new infrastructure, existing systems across Asia and the world must be upgraded to be climate-compatible and resilient, in response to intensifying environmental and climate challenges.
According to Berglof, meeting these infrastructure needs will require an estimated $1.5 trillion or more in annual investment through 2030—far exceeding what public budgets alone can cover. In this context, he underscored the importance of multilateral collaboration.
Since its inception, AIIB has invested $60 billion in infrastructure projects and now aims to invest an additional $75 billion by 2030 to help member countries meet their growing infrastructure demands, he said. (Huang Fang, Zhao Li)
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