Industry investment opportunities from Asian Urbanisation

Industry players of a banking forum today, claimed they see massive business opportunities from Asian urbanisation. This is with a researcher having emphasised aspects including agriculture, consumer products and infrastructure.

The infrastructure sector of the region on its own calls for 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars of investments from now to as far as 2030, as claimed by a senior representative of the McKinsey Global Institute during the DBS Asian Insights Conference. The agricultural sector is also anticipated to consolidate, generating major business opportunities.

The chairman of the Changi Airport Group said Asia particularly, would require transport facilities, airports and hospitals. They went onto explain there will be large demand for finance, as a variety of construction is assumed to remain robust in Asia, opening business for the banking sector as well.

The DBS Bank reported Asia's cities are rising by 44million people per year, citing researches of the Asian Development Bank. It is expected in around a decade from now, half of the region's population will reside in cities. It was also reported that Asia will motivate worldwide urbanisation, with India and China expected to contribute a combined 37% of the 1.4billion additional urban residents by 2030.

China views urbanisation as a crucial tool to reduce poverty and open jobs - and South East Asia has followed suit. South and South West Asia are now 45% and 35% urban now, however the urban population has been rising in almost every country of Asia since 1980.

The DBS Bank Chief Economist said that Asia contributed US$0.4 of demand for every U.S. dollar of new demand created by the U.S. during 1980. However, today it is US$2.5 of demand created by Asia for every dollar of demand created by the U.S. Since five years ago when Lehman Brothers collapsed, Asia has added 1.25 worth of Germanys to the world's economic map, which nobody expected during 2008 and most argued was impossible.

Asia is currently placing a Germany on the world economic map every three and half years. By 2039, it will be creating a Germany every seven months.

Experts also explained that Asian policy makers are required make the cities liveable, given that China has to develop a further three Americas to finalise its urbanisation process, as India will need to build another five and Indonesia will need to develop an additional one or two Americas.

Given the huge scale of urbanisation, the cities would have to be built ‘correctly’, according to a renowned architect known as the father of urban planning in Singapore. Furthermore, not many cities of Asia are currently truly liveable, with the exception of some cities in Singapore and Japan. Some Chinese cities are also close to being liveable. The cities would have to be resilient, calling for all possible factors to be taken into account during the process of planning.