The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a large regional trade agreement involving 12 countries. All participating countries signed the TPP in 2016, but the agreement did not officially go into effect until 2018. It was projected to result in a 1.1 percent rise in gross domestic product (GDP) for member economies by the World Bank. […]
KfW, a German state-owned investment and development bank, was initially founded in 1948 to finance the reconstruction of war-torn Germany after World War II but has expanded significantly over the years. It has become the second largest commercial bank in Germany and plays a substantial role internationally. Its large scale and function as a German […]
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has achieved considerable social and economic progress in the past three decades, but still lags behind many other parts of the world when it comes to key infrastructure areas – including sanitation, telecommunications, transportation and energy. These infrastructure gaps are now proving to be hurdles for productivity and competitiveness, […]
With the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB), infrastructure finance has received tremendous attention in recent years. However, a substantial gap exists between supply and demand of infrastructure services in the developing world that cannot be satisfied by the public sector alone. The 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis […]
National development banks (NDBs) have played an important role in South Asia’s development over the years. In the early period after South Asia’s Independence in the mid-20th century, the focus of NDBs was generally on supporting industrial development, with infrastructure development being supported by budgetary financing from governments. However, with the widening gaps in infrastructure […]
How has China expanded into global energy markets? In addition to the rising volume of energy commodities the country sources from all over the world as the world’s largest consumer, evidence of China’s expanding energy footprint has been mounting on two fronts over the past 15 years. First, and contrary to the conventional wisdom, China […]
In just over a decade, Chinese policy banks have emerged as global leaders in development finance in general and in finance for energy projects in developing country governments in particular. China has founded or co-founded two new multilateral development banks (MDBs) and at least 13 regional and bilateral funds that will increase Chinese development finance […]
By Rachel Thrasher and Kevin Gallagher. May 2016. Read the paper
In 2013, the Chinese government announced its plans to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and to pursue a massive regional infrastructure plan initially called either the “New Silk Road” or the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR), and now officially termed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). An extraordinary move by China, the BRI […]
The European Union and the United States are negotiating a proposed trade liberalization treaty, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Supporters of the treaty suggest that it will bring big economic gains to both Europe and America. The projected benefits of TTIP are based almost entirely on removal of bureaucratic and regulatory obstacles to […]