Gerald Keefe

Beyond the Belt and Road Initiative: Financing Asia's Needs

William Lee, Paul Gruenwald, Gerald Keefe, Lincoln Leong, Joachim von Amsberg, Faisal Syed

Addressing the trillions of dollars in infrastructure financing gaps across Asia, this panel discusses the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank's strategy to mobilize private capital through innovative project selection and cross-border connectivity. By leveraging value-capture models like MTR's rail-property approach and structured financial products such as maturity transformation, multilateral institutions aim to de-risk long-term investments for global institutional investors. The discussion concludes that shifting from bank-dominated lending to a market-based system requires robust public-private partnerships, regulatory certainty, and the allocation of specific risks to ensure sustainable economic development.