The world economy is recovering from the blows inflicted by the Covid 19 pandemic, with the International Monetary Fund forecasting global growth of 6% in its latest update of the World Economic Outlook. They are needed now to strengthen the recovery investment in sustainable infrastructure, of quality and digital carried out by public and private subjects, called to collaborate to respond to the environmental challenges that the world is called to face.
This is the main message that emerged from the two days of work D20 Long-Term Investors Club (D20-LTIC), the international club of long-term investors created in 2009 by the European Investment Bank (EIB), Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC–France) and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW–Germany) at the purpose of bringing together long-term institutional investors who have total assets of over 5.400 billion dollars (4.600 billion euros), or almost 8% of the GDP of the G20 countries.
The European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Paolo Gentiloni, the Italian Minister of Economy and Finance Daniele Franco, the Minister of Infrastructure and Mobility Sustainable Enrico Giovannini, the Minister of Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani, the President of the Task Force on T24 infrastructure Francesco Profumo, the President and CEO of Cdp, Giovanni Gorno Tempini and Dario Scannapieco.
“During this intense year, the Italian Presidency has promoted the G20 Agenda taking into consideration two aspects: the need to collaborate on the three pillars that it has indicated as priorities – people, planet and prosperity – and that of involving private individuals on policies long-term and sustainable investments,” said the Economy Minister Daniele Franco ispeaking at the conference. During his speech, the owner of the MEF underlined the "critical role" that infrastructures play on the road to growth. "Not only can investments in infrastructure fuel the recovery and sustainable growth - he reiterated - but it is necessary for policymakers to proceed now and take on a guiding role" to "fill the investment gap". Franco finally admitted that there are some barriers to private investment in infrastructure, as "the long-term nature of investments exposes us to risks, including social risks and those related to environmental factors". Policymakers must therefore “address these challenges”.
The Long-Term Investors Club, coordinated by CDP, also approved the D20 Statement 2021, a document with which it will contribute to the conclusions of the next G20 Finance meeting, containing three main recommendations: the first concerns the need to "improve the conditions that favor the mobilization and synergy between public and private resources, a practice that increases the available funds and reduces the perceived risk for private investments". The second recommendation concerns the creation of ad hoc financial instruments, the promotion of a review of the existing Partnership - Public - Private (PPP) contracts and the achievement of an agreement on common standards of quality and sustainability. Finally, the document calls for "greater stability of the regulatory framework, long-term planning certainty and general complementarity between public and private sector investments, structuring a partnership that optimizes costs, quality and returns for investors", reads the CDP note.
The document underlines the importance of investment in new infrastructure, but also to channel resources towards the maintenance of existing ones in order to give concrete answers to the challenges posed by climate change, inequalities and the lack of inclusiveness. "In this context, sustainability and digitalisation will be at the center of joint efforts to finance infrastructure design, construction and maintenance,” announces the D20-LTIC.
The President of the European Investment Bank and of D20 Long-Term Investors Werner Hoyer said: “During the D20-LTIC summit, which brings together key publicly mandated financial institutions, we underlined the need to accelerate and scale up investment, especially in infrastructure and climate, to ensure a robust recovery from the COVID emergency -19 and a green and sustainable transition. The health and economic crisis caused by the pandemic has shown us that we will not achieve the climate objectives imposed with the technologies we have available today. We need to invest in radical innovations, and we need to make clean technologies accessible to developing countries."
“Created to discuss activities and legislative models that could favor long-term investments – explained the president of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Giovanni Gorno Tempini – the D20-LTIC is today a global economic and social reference point. The 2021 Summit that CDP has the honor of hosting in Rome, in line with the Italian Presidency of the G20 and together with top-level partners, is an important opportunity for international discussion also on how the Next Generation EU program will translate into investments concrete. Public-private collaboration, supported by institutional investors such as CDP, will play a crucial role in reducing the global gap between already allocated infrastructure investments and those needed to meet climate neutrality and sustainable development goals”.
"CDP contributes concretely to the creation of quality and sustainable infrastructures, because we believe that better infrastructures will contribute to a stable and lasting economic recovery and to achieve the 6% growth target this year", continued Gorno Tempini, recalling that infrastructures capable of projecting us into the future, of achieving the energy transition and the objectives of carbon neutrality, at the center of the political agenda of many countries. In this regard, the manager cited the estimates of the World Bank, according to which every dollar invested in sustainable infrastructure generates 4 dollars of benefit for the economy.
“Infrastructure will be one of the main drivers of the post-pandemic recovery. However, given the constraints of public budgets, private sector players are called to play a more important role in future investments in quality infrastructure", reiterated the CEO of CDP, Dario Scannapieco, stressing that the resources deployed by the EU represent "an unrepeatable opportunity to reduce the risk perceived by private investors with respect to potential infrastructure investments, and to improve market liquidity", concluded Scannapieco.
For Scannapieco, the actions of Cdp will have to “be coordinated with the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. We must assume the role of accelerator of infrastructure investment projects through the provision of loans to companies and public bodies as well as encouraging the private sector to pursue new investments in this area”, concluded the CEO of CDP.
