Across Asia, vast and varied infrastructure needs are being addressed. Large-scale public spending in transport and cargo capacities is raising the volume of economic activity, improving competitiveness and enticing new investors across the region. The private sector is being courted to participate in infrastructure upgrade projects, as city and regional governments confront fiscal restrictions and budgetary pressures.
A pan-regional funding platform is also in place. Promulgated by China in 2013, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is based in Beijing. Its operational structure was ratified by 57 member countries in 2015 to focus on the development of energy and power, transport and telecommunications, rural infrastructure and agriculture, water supply and sanitation, environmental protection, urban development and logistics across Asia.
Seamlessly connecting companies, customers and consumers across Asia’s landlocked and island territories (click on icons):
Alongside the physical infrastructure projects, a similarly expansive program of smart infrastructure development is underway to create more powerful and integrated communications platforms. Smart infrastructures comprise any technology that makes business processes more agile and effective through collecting, analyzing and segmenting big data. They improve the speed, security and efficiency of doing business by adding knowledge-driven immediacy to decision-making and reducing the time to market.
Using smart infrastructures correctly can give companies a clear competitive advantage through higher efficiencies and superior standards of service – by letting them reduce inventories and operate just-in-time strategies, for example, but also by ensuring that the right products are available via the right channels at the right time (thanks to data-based automated replenishment and production planning).
Digitization and the Market Expansion Services Industry: Driving Omni-Channel Growth, DKSH’s Fourth Global Market Expansion Services Report