Conclusions

This chapter begins where Chapter 1 left off, by examining the very different trajectories of infrastructure spending in the world’s two largest economies (the United States being larger in terms of US dollars, China in purchasing power parity terms). China is pushing on wholeheartedly with its infrastructure-led growth strategy. Domestically, it is aiming to transform itself into a ‘high-speed rail economy’, extending the existing 4 x 4 network (4 north-south, 4 east-west) into an 8 x 8 system. Internationally, there is the ambitious Belt and Road initiative, likely to dwarf anything the world has seen, comprising: first, a series of land-based trade and transport corridors known as the Silk Road Economic Belt; and second, the Twenty First Century Maritime Silk Road traversing the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and Africa, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. China has committed $1 trillion to Belt and Road over the next decade, and as much as $3 trillion in all. By contrast, until now the United States has been neglecting infrastructure maintenance and free-riding on the efforts of earlier generations, although President Trump has committed to spend $1 trillion on boosting infrastructure. The chapter examines three dimensions and three levels of the problem, and how US infrastructure (and other countries playing ‘catch-up’) can be paid for. Finally, the chapter draws together the themes of the volume, and what we believe has been learnt about procuring public infrastructure.