Between the Poles

US 3D elevation project as a model for a national infrastructure map

A number of years ago an initiative was funded under the ARRA economic stimulus package to initiate what was then called LiDAR for the Nation.  This has resulted in a USGS initiative called 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) whose goal over an eight year period is to develop a 3D elevation map with horizontal resolution of a meter and vertical resolution of 10 cm for the entire U.S. and territories.  This entails LiDAR scanning the contiguous continental U.S. and Hawaii and interferometric synthetic radar over Alaska.  It also includes bathymetric data for the U.S. coastline.  To date 48% of the U.S. has been covered or scanning is underway.  An inventory of these projects is available.

At GIS in the Rockies this year Carol Lydic of the USGS gave an overview of this program and the most recent initiatives to broaden the partnerships that are instrumental in creating the national 3D elevation map.  The program is based on partnerships with federal, state, local, and tribal government agencies, academic institutions and the private sector.

In 2012 a study was completed that estimated the economic value to 27 different sectors of accurate 3D data.  The top five included in this study (National Enhanced Elevation Assessment) are

• Flood risk management                                  $295m to  $502m
• Infrastructure and construction management $206m to  $942m
• Natural resources conservation                     $159m to  $335m
• Agriculture and precision farming                  $122m to $2,011m
• Water supply and quality                                  $85m to  $156m

The total economic benefits for all sectors was estimated to be between $1.8B to $13B.   I find this to be a very conservative estimate. 

A number of years ago I remember hearing about an outstanding program by the state of North Carolina in cooperation with federal agencies that involved a statewide LiDAR scan and the creation of a database of all structures with a footprint of over 800 square feet that allowed estimates to be made of the economic impact of any type of flood anywhere in the state or of a rise in sea level along North Carolina's coastline.  This is of inestimable value in assessing any mitigation project.

In the infrastructure and construction sector, one of the largest contributors to the cost of a civil construction project such as a highway or a railway, is the amount of earth that has to be moved which can be derived from a 3D terrain model.  Having a reliable digital terrain model is of great value to any civil project for assessing alternative right of ways during the planning stage and could also be used during the design and construction phases especially if supplemented by information about the soil and geological structure of the subsurface and location of underground utilities.

I found the 3DEP project particularly interesting because it represents a potential model for creating a national infrastructure map including underground infrastructure.  Federal organizations that could be involved include USGS, National Map, US DOT, FERC, and NERC.  Partners might include NARUC (National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners), CGA (Common Ground Alliance), state and municipal DOTs, AGC (Associated General Contractors of America), utility and telecom network operators, general contractors, tribal government agencies, and academic institutions.

UK's Geospatial Commission could play a role in the digital transformation of construction

Governments are consolidating the role of geospatial data and technology in central governments. I have blogged about the Geospatial Data Act of 2017 in the U.S. Studies of the value of spatial data  and technology to several national economies have suggested that wise government policy could significantly increase the contribution of spatial data and technology to the national GDP.  Earlier this year the UK government created a Geospatial Commission which is intended to consolidate ten government departments and agencies including the Ordnance Survey. At Geo Business 2018 in London, William Priest, Director of the Geospatial Commission, gave an overview of the mission of the Geospatial Commission and the role it could play in the digital transformation of construction.

‎ Geospatial data and technology has disrupted things like nothing else. In the hands of Google, Uber, Tesla, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, and others geospatial data and technology have touched just about everyone's lives.  And the UK has been a leader in the application geospatial data and technology.  Among the countries of the world the UK ranks #1 or #2 in geospatial readiness. The Geospatial Commission has been allocated GBP 40 million‎ for year 1 and year 2 to find ways to use geospatial technology to deliver economic growth and improve productivity and drive investment to foster innovation and to protect and enhance the quality of the UK's world class geospatial data assets. If this money is spent money wisely, it could unlock tremendous value in the UK economy, primarily by removing removing barriers, for example, in making the Ordnance Survey's Mastermap more open and accessible.

Of the potential use cases where geospatial data and technology could unlock value - healthcare and social welfare, housing, land and planning, optimizing end-to-end supply chains, infrastructure and construction, forecasting demand for public services, data quality and standards, flood prevention and protection, earth observation, and critical national infrastructure - the one that could have the largest impact on the economy is construction which represents roughly 10 % of GDP.  In a recent report, McKinsey & Company suggests that the construction industry is ripe for disruption and one of the five technologies that it identified as key in the anticipated transformation is geospatial.

Construction industry poised for rapid digitization

The CG/LA Infrastructure Leadership Forum in Montreal has provided a fascinating glimpse into what is happening around the world in infrastructure from a technology, financing, and business model perspective. . From 50,000 feet the big item is that the construction industry may be at the tipping point with respect to digitization.

PPP

Probably the highlight of the event is the success of PPP projects, especially in Canada.  About one quarter of major infrastructure projects in Canada are PPP.  In the U.S. the PPP model works well in some jurisdictions, for example, the Port Authority of New New York and New Jersey.  In some states PPP is illegal and even at the federal taxation level until recently there were tax regulations that hindered the adoption of the PPP model.  The presentations made clear that there are multiple PPP models.   Several projects in Latin America were looking at PPP alternatives that were better suited to their jurisdictions.  A conference attendee from Nigeria was clearly very interested in which of the PPP models were appropriate in his country.

Investment in infrastructure

Big numbers were on virtually every speaker's lips.  The Canadian Federal government intends to invest $180 billion over ten years in infrastructure, the Quebec government $87 billion, President Trump threw out $1 trillion over five years in a state of the union speech a few days ago, Boston Consulting Group has estimated that there is a spending gap of $1 trillion annually, and the ASCE estmates that US infrastructure requires an investment of $4 million just to make up for the lack of maintenance over the past decades. Some speakers made a convincing case that these estimates are overblown. Whatever the numbers there was a consensus that there is a very large need for investment in infrastructure. 

But infrastructure, while among the top ten priorities for Americans, is not up there with jobs and the economy.  The Boston Consulting Group estimates that there are 15.4 million jobs in the infrastructure industry.  On average these are better paying than the average blue collar job.  The BCG modeling suggests that $ 1 trillion invested in infrastructure could get this up to 19 to 20 million jobs.  To get attention infrastructure has to be about jobs.

The good news is that there was a consensus that there is a lot of money looking for infrastructure projects. One speaker estimated ten times as much money as projects to invest in.  The holdups appear to be:
1) Permitting - Few are willing to commit money to projects that don't have the requisite permitting in place.  In the U.S. that process requires on average 9.5 years, but can take up to 15 years.
2) Social licence - These days it is not enough to simply get the state, federal, presidential, US Army Corps of Engineers and other regulatory permits.  It is necessary to get a social licence which means actively seeking buyin from the community.  For example, the Plains and Eastern Tennessee transmission line project has been supported by the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations as well as local landowners and other stakeholders.  Sometimes opposition comes from unexpected sources.  Clean Line's several big transmission projects have sometimes been filed against by the local utilities companies whose service territory the line crosses.
3) Business case - Investors are looking for a low risk investment with a good return.  That means that benefits to various stakeholders have to be identified and stakeholders brought into the project to spread the risk and reduce it for any one participant.

A lot of this money is private from domestic and international sources.  Japan and Saudi Arabia were both mentioned as sources of money for infrastructure investment.  Canadian pension funds are active in investing in infrastructure internationally.  To attract private funding infrastructure projects will have to generate returns, and that will drive investment in technology to improve productivity.

U.S. infrastructure market

Another highlight of the conference was Dan Rule's presentation on the Trump Transition Team's recommendation for infrastructure development in the next four years, which I blogged about previously.

Interestingly what Trump decides to do with respect to infrastructure may not be all that important. In the U.S. the federal government is not by any measure the biggest player in the infrastructure market - it only represents about 10% of the market. The big player is local governments. Local government has enormous power to choose projects, raise money and borrow money. This local autonomy is baked into the Constitution. Local governments decide on infrastructure projects and then float (tax deductible) bond issues to finance them.  The muni bond market is $3.2 trillion and is the second largest debt market.  There is good news here as well. The majority of the bond issues at the local level to fund infrastructure projects are successful in raising the necessary money through rates.State governments are also big players in the infrastructure market.  One speaker recommended to vendors and consultants looking for opportunities in the U.S. to look for municipalities who had recently successfully floated bond issues or states that had increased the gas tax or counties that has implemented a sales tax. In some states the state government and local governments are collaborating to fix all bridges in need of rehabilitation rather than inefficient one-offs by individual municipalities and counties. 

Large infrastructure projects

There are some very innovative large infrastructure projects around the world that were profiled at the conference.  I was very impressed that the long-haul transmission business appears to be coming to life in the U.S.  This business is not being driven by the incumbent power utilities, but by new players like Clean Line.  Geospatial technology underpins transmission line siting, transportation, and increasingly horizontal construction as drones, scanners, 3D visualization and other digital technology transforms the construction industry.

Technology

From a technology perspective just about every speaker referred to the lack of progress on productivity in the construction industry. Engineering and construction are second from the bottom on the IT adoption chart. But Wipro, Booz Allen Hamilton, Aconex,  Jacobs, and other vendors and analyst McKinsey believe that the construction industry is poised for the digitization revolution.  Vendors are investing heavily in technology including artificial intelligence, digital modeling such as BIM and full lifecycle BIM or BIM++ as one speaker referred to it, machine learning, drones, neural networks, virtual reality, big data, analytics, automation and hyperautomation.

GIS has been widely used by utilities for years for automated mapping/facilities management, back office records management, asset management, transmission line siting, and more recently for design and construction, energy conservation, vegetation management, mobile workforce management (MWFM), and outage management (OMS). Now, utilities are integrating GIS with automated meter infrastructure (AMI) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. Intelligent design has crossed over from the office to the field in utilities, also enabled by the capabilities of GIS. Geospatial-related analytics (spatial analytics) is seen as one of the key aspects of success for electric utility operations in the smart grid era. Looking for patterns and correlations between different land, weather, terrain, assets, and other types of geodata will be increasingly important for utilities. Power-related analytics with geospatial components include network fault tracing, load flow analysis, Volt/VAR analysis, real-time disaster situational awareness, condition-based maintenance, and vegetation management.

As an example, PrecisionHawk is not only selling drone services but the geoanalytics to extract useful, actionable information. One of their targets is the construction industry and they intend to fit their solutions into existing workflows.  For example, a drone can collect aerial imagery of a stockpile, and the software provided by PrecisionHawk enables the volume of the stockpile to be calculated from the imagery without the user having to know much about drones, imagery, meshes or algorithms for calculating stockpile volumes.  PrecisionHawk also have an FAA permit for beyond-line-of-sight (BVLOS) drone flights. (I already blogged about the pilot flights that Xcel Energy also has an FAA permit for.) This suggests the next step will be drone data collection and geospatial analytical applications based on this data for linear construction projects.

Trump transition team infrastructure strategy intended to restart the U.S. economy

At the CG/LA Global Infrastructure Leadership Forum today Dan Slane, the director responsible for infrastructure in the Trump Transition Team, described his report which he completed and delivered January 20 this year.  In his view the only way to get the U.S. economy going again, by improving productivity and delivering 4 million high quality jobs (paying $60-80 000 for high school graduates), is infrastructure investment.  Slane, who has an extensive background in private and public infrastructure development noted that the U.S. has neglected infrastructure over the past 30 years.  He cited the ASCE Infrastructure Scorecard estimate that it will require $4 trillion to repair years of neglect (the 2017 Scorecard is expected this month).  Slane said that the the biggest impediment to infrastructure development is permitting.  In the U.S. on average it requires 9.5 years to get the necessary permits in place for an infrastructure project.  It involves many federal and state agencies and can take up to 15 years.  Another problem he mentioned is predatory and abusive law suits which are not intended to be won but to hold up projects.

When asked by President Trump to propose an infrastructure strategy as part of the transition team, he decided to take a business approach.  First and foremost the investment had to generate high quality jobs for high school graduates in disadvantaged geographical areas.  In addition he used five other criteria to assess potential projects.

1) Fix the worst of the worst - fix infrastructure like the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis before they collapse.

2) Fix productivity of America - fix infrastructure bottlenecks that inhibit productivity.  He gave an example of a lock on the Mississippi River that ships require two days to pass through.

3) Defensive projects - projects that are designed to prevent serious economic disruption, for example, structures to prevent storm surges from seriously impacting the oil and gas facilities on the Louisiana Coast or New York transportation hubs.

4) National security - examples are cybersecurity projects and projects that are designed to prevent disruption of the U.S. energy grid by enabling redundancy.

5) Next gen - projects that contribute to the development of the infrastructure of the future.

He with the help of Norman Anderson, President & CEO of CG/LA Infrastructure, winnowed 240 major projects down to 100 initially and then further down to 52 projects.  They asked the Boston Consulting Group to verify the cost benefit analyses for these projects.  It was estimated that the total cost of the 52 projects was $2.5 trillion and that the investment would generate 500 000 direct high quality jobs. The projects would require private investment funding. 

The biggest hurdle to getting these 52 projects underway in the next four years was overcoming the permitting roadblock.  Dan Slane proposed that the president issue an executive order mandating the 13 federal agencies who needed to be involved in the permitting of the 52 projects to complete the permitting within four months. The idea was that this would force the agencies to collaborate and to work in parallel rather than sequentially as is the normal practice.

Dan Slane submitted his infrastructure report January 20.  Today he was unable to say what progress has been made since then as he is no longer part of the Administration.  He speculated that the Administration may be completely tied up with health care and taxation.  In his first major speech as president a couple of days ago Trump committed $ 1 trillion to infrastructure but did not provide details as to whether this is meant to be federal expenditures or tax incentives.

Wind power becomes commercially competitive with coal - with help from GIS

It is incredible how rapidly wind power generation has grown over the past decade.  The latest Global Wind Report Annual Market Update 2012 from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) reports that the 2012 global wind power market grew by more than 10% compared to 2011.  In 2012 nearly 45 gigawatts (GW) of new wind power capacity resulted from about €56 billion of investment. The new global total capacity at the end of 2012 was 282.5GW, equal to about a quarter of the total power generation capacity of the U.S.

The EU installed 11.6 GW of capacity in 2012.  The total wind power capacity in the EU has reached 105.6 GW.   26% of all new EU power capacity installed in 2012 was wind with investments of between €12.8 billion and €17.2 billion. Wind is responsilble for generating 7% of Europe’s electricity demand.

At the end of 2012, there were 76 GW of wind electricity generating capacity installed in China.  China plans to have 100 GW of on-grid wind power generating capacity by the end of 2015.

According to the AWEA 2012 was a record year for the U.S. wind energy industry.  More new wind power capacity was installed in the U.S. than any other form of power generation, which is pretty incredible given that 25 years ago there was no significant wind power generation at all.  In 2012 over 13 GW of new generating capacity were installed across the U.S. representing $25 billion in private investment.  Cumulative wind capacity in the U.S. reached  60 GW by the end of 2012, about 3.5% of total U.S. generation capacity.

According to Bloomberg, MidAmerican Energy, which is nearly 90% owned by Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett), has ordered over a GW of wind turbines from Siemens (Siemens has a wind turbine blade factory in Lee County, Iowa.) for wind farms in Iowa at a cost of about $1 billion.  This is despite the fact that the  main federal tax credit for wind power the Production Tax Credit (PTC) expired at the end of 2012 (but was renewed January 1 with bipartisan support for one year.) 

The PTC pays 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity generated for ten years after a turbine is installed.  One important reason the PTC has bipartisan support is that it generates employment in primarily rural states like Iowa, Kansas, and South Dakota. Two states generate over 20% of their power from wind and 7 others generate more that 10% of their power from wind.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) has said that the MidAmerican Energy wind turbine purchase shows that wind power is becoming profitable without subsidies.

MidAmerican Energy is a rapidly growing investor owned utility (IOU).  The Nevada Public Utiltiies Commission (PUC) has just approved the sale of NV Energy to MidAmerican Energy.  In the past I worked quite a bit with NV Energy which is an IOU formed from Sierra Pacific Power (Reno and northern Nevada) and Nevada Power (Las Vegas).

Wind and GIS

In the U.S. the National Renewable Energy Lab's (NREL) Geographic Information System (GIS) team provides maps of high-resolution wind data that are used to determine optimum locations for siting wind farms.  The national wind resource data provides an estimate of the annual average wind resource for the conterminous United States, with a resolution of 1/3 degree of latitude by 1/4 degree of longitude.  It is based on surface wind data, coastal marine area data, and upper-air data.  In areas where there is little directly observed wind data, It uses topographic and meteorological indicators such as gorges, mountain summits, and sheltered valleys, and vegetation that has been deformed by wind; and landforms like sand dunes.

The other key factor for siting wind farms is access to transmission.  NREL also provides maps of the electric power transmission grid overlayed on wind maps.

GIS is also being used in emerging economies to help site wind and solar renewable energy generation.

Brazil plans stimulus to attract private investment in transportation infrastructure

A massive spend on infrastructure, globally about $50 trillion, is expected over the next two decades. It is anticipated that the infrastructure spend in the developing countries market is just as large as in the developed countries market. But infrastructure spending growth is significantly higher in the developing countries market.  In many countries there is a shortage of infrastructure funding from governments.  This set the stage for greater private investment.  But there are significant impediments preventing private capital from playing a greater role in funding infrastructure.  Complex regulations and politics which slow infrastructure development and poor construction productivity are important factors in eroding returns on infrastructure and making infrastructure less attractive for private investment.

Brazil's government has announced a stimulus package designed to attract up to R$133 billion (US$66 billion) from the private sector for road and rail projects.  The government plans to take the lead on the project. A new state-run company will be created to manage infrastructure planning and the BNDES development bank will provide subsidized loans for the projects.  The government hopes to attract investments for major highway projects as well as to add 10,000 kilometers to Brazil's rail network.

As in the case of the UK's National Infrastructure Plan, the government will have to find ways to make infrastructure projects attractive to private investors through concessions such as loan guarantees and low cost loans.

Transportation infrastructure in Brazil detracts from economic growth (as anyone who has tried to get between Congonhas and Guarulhos airports in Sao Paulo on a Friday afternoon will know).  Reportedly goods take at least twice as long to move the same distance as they do in China and other more efficient markets.

Job creation by the App Economy

An interesting analysis of job creation by the "App Economy" has been conducted for TechNet by Dr.Michael Mandel of South Mountain Economics LLC.  This includes employment at pure App startups; large companies such as Electronic Arts, Amazon, AT&T, and Autodesk; App infrastructure jobs at Google, Apple, Facebook, RIM, and Microsoft, and spillovers to the rest of the economy.

As of December 12, 2011, the Apple App store lists 529,550 active apps, uploaded by 124,475 active publishers.  Google's Android Market lists more than 300,000 apps.  The App Economy generated almost $20 billion in revenue in 2011, including app downloads, in-app revenues, sales of virtual goods, and sales of physical goods and services.

A study of app-related jobs just on Facebook  estimated the number of employees employed by third party developers to be 53,434.  With the spillover to the rest of the economy, this suggests182,744 full time jobs.

The majior platforms in the App Economy are
• Android (Google)
• Apple iOS (Apple)
• Blackberry (RIM)
• Facebook
• Windows Phone and Windows Mobile (Microsoft)

The Technet analysis suggests that there were 155,000 tech jobs in the App Economy as of December 2011 including developer and tech support jobs at both dedicated app developers and at large companies who create apps for them or for others.  This implies that there are roughly 311,000 jobs in App Economy firms, including tech jobs, which require app-related skills, and the corresponding non-tech jobs.  With spillover included, the total number of jobs created in the App Economy is estimated at 466,000 jobs since the iPhone was introduced in 2007. A geographic breakdown suggests many of these were created in California

• California 23.8%
• New York 6.9%
• Washington 6.4%
• Texas 5.4%
• New Jersey 4.2%
• Illinois 4.0%
• Massachusetts 3.9%
• Georgia 3.7%
• Virginia 3.5%
• Florida 3.1%

Obama says infrastructure needs investment

President Obama in his State of the Union speech specifically called out infrastructure as requiring significant investment.  He said that "our infrastructure used to be the best", and mentioned countries such as Russia, China, South Korea, and several European countries that are ahead of the US in some sector of infrastructure.  He also referred to the American Society of Civil Engineers' Intrastructure Scorecard that assigned a grade of "D" to American infrastructure.

He said that the Administration is proposiing to redouble the rebuilding efforts that were initiated over the past two years and identified attracting private funding as important for this effort.  He specifically mentioned two initiatives.

High speed rail

Within 25 years the goal is to enable 80% of Americans to have access to high speed rail.  He mentioned routes in California and the Midwest that are already underway.

High speed wireless

Within 5 years the goal is to make it possible for businesses to provide 98% of Americans with access to the next generation of high speed wireless coverage.

ASCE says $1.7 trillion investment in highways and transit systems required over next nine years

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released a study Failure to Act, The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trands in Surface Transportation Infrastructure which assesses the impact of underinvestment in surface transportation infrastructure (highways and transit systems).

The ASCE intends to release four reports on the state of US infrastructure.  In addition to this one, reports will be released on water and wastewater, energy transmission, and ports and airports.  The ASCE previously released three widely discussed Reports Cards on the state of U.S. infrastructure in 2003, 2007 and 2009, which have motivated similar analyses of infrastructure in other countries.

The study concludes that the deteriorating surface transportation infrastructure in the U.S. will cost the U.S. economy more than 876,000 jobs and subtract $897 billion from the Gross Domestic Product by 2020.

In 2010 underinvestment in roads, bridges, and transit systems cost American households and businesses roughly $130 billion,

• $97 billion in vehicle operating costs
• $32 billion in delays in travel time
• $1.2 billion in safety costs
• $590 million in environmental costs

The study also concluded that If investments in surface transportation infrastructure are not made soon, those costs will grow exponentially.

Higher transporation costs

By 2020 U.S. businesses will pay an added $430 billion in transportation costs because the raw materials they buy will cost more and it will cost more to ship goods.

Lower productivity reduced global competitiveness

Poor infrastructure will lower productivity causing businesses to underperform by $240 billion over the next decade, which will increase the prices of goods.  U.S. exports will drop in many sectors, with a total impact of $28 billion.  The sectors impacted include key technology sectors such as machinery and communications equipment.

Job losses

Almost 877,000 jobs would be lost by 2020, primarily in the high-value, knowledge-based service economy including professional, business and medical sectors.

Lower disposable incomes

Family income would decrease by $700 per each year as a result of increased transporation costs. Household expenditures would also increase by $30 per month because of the increased cost of goods. Each family would have to spend $360 more each year for a net impact on each family's budget of $1060.

Impact of increased investment in surface transportation

The report estimates that in order to bring U.S. surface transportation infrastructure up to tolerable levels (corresponding to a "C" on the Report Card ), an investment of approximately $1.7 trillion between now and 2020 in highways and transit systems is required.  This is commensurate with the total annual spend on all types of construction in the US (over $2 trillion).

Of that total about half or $877 billion has already been budgeted, so that the gap is about $846 billion over the next nine years, or $94 billion per year.  The study observes that this is about 60% of what U.S. consumers spend annually on fast food.  For this increased infrastructure investment the U.S. would

• Protect 1.1 million jobs
• Save Americans nearly 2 Billion hours in travel time each year
• Deliver an average of $1,060 to each family each year
• Protect $2600 of GDP for every man, woman and child in the U.S.

The ASCE sees the American Jobs Act which according to the ASCE proposes to invest $90 billion in U.S. infrastructure as a first step in the rigth direction.

Preparing for increasing urbanizatian in Malaysia

Malaysia expects that 70% of its inhabitants will be living in urban environments by 2020.  Last year Malaysia released its 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP), which focuses on developing infrastructure to improve productivity and making the private sector the engine of development.  The target is to make Malaysia a high income economy through productivity growth. One of the reasons the government wants to encourage urbanization is international empirical evidence that cities have three times the productivity of rural areas.  MP10 identifies 12 National Key Economic Areas  (NKEA), most of which are sectoral, but one of which is Malaysia's largest urban centre Greater Kuala Lumpur.

The Malaysian economy has been very successful in the past, but primarily because it has been a low cost economy.  The Malaysian electrical and electronics industry, which is known worldwide for inexpensive digital components, is responsible for 26.1% of manufacturing output and
more than 40% of total manufacturing labour.

According to MP10, the Malaysian economy needs to improve productivity, by upskilling the existing work force to facilitate industries to move up the value chain, enabling specialization and economies of scale, and increasing public investment in innovation, particularly R&D and venture capital funding especially through shared risk public-private partnerships.  The government has created a RM 20 billion (US$ 6 billion) Facilitation Fund that it hopes will attract RM 200 billion (US$60 billion) in private capital.  ICT is a major area of focus for improving productiivity.  ICT accounted for 9.8% of GDP in 2009 and is targeted to increase to 10.2% by 2015.

The MP10 focusses on development of infrastructure specifically housing, transportation, energy, water resources and sustainability.  Major initiatives include increasing broadband penetration, upgrading transportation networks, ensuring a secure and reliable energy supply including increasing renewable energy, developing a long-term strategy for water resource management and restructuring the water services industry, protecting rivers from pollution, adaptation to protect Malaysia from the risks of climate change, and reducing Malaysia’s carbon footprint.  I blogged previously about Malaysia's recent introduction of a feed-in tariff program to encourage renewable energy and TNB's smart grid plans to support distributed generation.

The MP10 sees environmental management as an incipient industry with substantial growth potential in green technology which could spin off new categories of professionals and new areas of specialization for architectural and engineering services.

The plan identifies 52 high impact infrastructure projects worth RM 63 billion including

• Seven toll highways - RM 19 billion
• Two coal-fired power plants - RM 7 billion
• Malaysian Rubber Board land development  - RM 10 billion
• Electrified double track rail project – RM 8 billion
• Waste water treatment plant using green technology in Lembah Pantai
• Roads, electricity, water supply, and communication networks to rural areas
• Construction of 76,000 affordable houses