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Like many companies in the AEC industry, we're looking with interest at the stimulus package announcements and hoping that each one has a sizeable chunk allocated to infrastructure investment.

Nearly all major economies have announced at least one package so I thought that, to get an idea of where the opportunities lie, it would be interesting to compare them and see what they've put on the table for infrastructure spend.

The figures below are all in US dollars and have been converted using current rates. The $265 billion stimulus package put forward by the European Union is additional to these figures.

From these numbers, nearly $2.5 trillion will be spent by these countries alone to try and get the global economy back on track. What's interesting to note is that countries joined to the WTO's 'Government Procurement Agreement' can bid on each other's projects. For example, companies from the United States, Canada, the European Union, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Liechtenstein, Singapore, and Switzerland are all entitled to bid on infrastructure developments in each others' countries, significantly opening up the opportunities worldwide. Companies from Mexico, Australia, and Chile can also bid on projects, as these countries have free-trade agreements with most of those countries.

Although the jury is still out on the extent and timing of any impact of this stimulus spending on the wider economy, the construction industry has certainly taken note. The past few months have seen a deluge of conferences and seminars in most major markets aimed at helping firms understand where the opportunities lie. Aconex has recently sponsored and attended two of these - in Sydney and Houston - and the mood of participants in both cases was cautiously optimistic about the outlook for the infrastructure sector over the next 12 months.

Labels: Global trends