By Bob Frick, Senior Editor

From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, March 2008 Investors are waking up to the sound of jackhammers worldwide. In the next 20 years, the tab to build and maintain roads and bridges, and to create and maintain systems that deliver electricity, water, sanitation and telecom services, will swell to $30 trillion. Rich countries must upgrade decades-old infrastructure, and developing nations must build it to make their economies competitive

Infrastructure investments can provide dependable returns. Consider the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge System, now managed by a private Australian and Spanish consortium that collects $3 each time a car uses the 7.8-mile span. Says Arthur Simonson, managing director of Standard & Poor's utilities and infrastructure rating group: "These types of assets generate very steady cash flows. They're bond-like." Ernst & Young figures that as much as $240 billion to $360 billion a year in private investments could be used to finance infrastructure projects worldwide.

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Posted by dcjaya at February 12, 2008 3:05 PM