Singapore retains top spot as most attractive country for infrastructure investment

Malaysia is rapidly rising through the ranks.

Singapore remains the most attractive market for infrastructure investors for the third year running, accoring to the Global Infrastructure Investment Index by Arcadis.

Despite a slightly lower score for economic factors, Singapore ranked consistently highly across business, risk, infrastructure and financial indicators.

Singapore’s efforts to improve understanding of infrastructure as an asset class, such as by developing new benchmarking tools, will also make the city-state more attractive to long-term infrastructure investors.

In the global rankings, Singapore was followed by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and Malaysia. In the Asia-Pacific rankings, meanwhile, Malaysia was second to Singapore, followed by Australia, Japan and China.

The report noted that Malaysia's strong economic performance and continued long-term investment in infrastructure, such as the capital’s metro system, have made the market attractive for investment.

However, in the short term, investment is threatened by a number of risks, including the ringgit's depreciation against the dollar and a high-profile corruption scandal that has delayed some projects.

"We have already seen Asia-based investors taking positions globally as infrastructure becomes an increasingly popular asset class for private sector investors, particularly in times of increased risk and uncertainty," said Graham Kean, Head of Client Development at Arcadis Asia.