Water Deregulation Report 2008 – Historical NRG Expert Energy Data Series
Although the absolute figure looks large, the water and waste sector lags sadly behind other the infrastructure sectors in the private investment it receives. By the end of 2006 526 PSP projects worth a cumulative total of $53 billion had been closed in the water and waste sector in developing countries and a further amount in developed countries. This amounted to only 5% of the cumulative global PSP investment total of $1,092 billion between 1990 and 2006. This also included telecommunications (49%), energy (29%) and transport (16%). East Asia and the Pacific region received a total of $25.4 billion, Latin America $22.1 billion, Europe and Central Asia $4.5 billion. Between them Asia Pacific and Latin America received 90% of the entire expenditure in the water and waste sector from 1990 to 2006.
The investment has been fairly uniform over the years with three peaks when very large projects were carried out. In most years between $1 – 2 billion has been spent except for 1993 when expenditure reached $6.6 billion, 1997 when it was $10.2 billion, 1999 when it was $6.5 billion and in 2000 it reached $8.6 billion. In 1993 most of the investment was in Argentina and Malaysia, in 1997 in the Philippines, in 1999 in Chile and in 2000 in Malaysia, Romania and several other countries receiving smaller amounts.
There have also been increases in the number of reversals, especially in Latin America and Africa. 53 PPI projects have been cancelled or were in distress,totalling $16.4 billion by the end of 2006. 53% of this investment ($8,687 million)
was cancelled or in distress in Latin America and 47% ($7,724 million) in Asia Pacific. The cancellations have not all been one sided, they have been instigated either by governments, by popular opposition or by the concessionaires. There is anescalating degree of opposition, mainly regarding privatisation in developing
countries. However, there has also been criticism of private participation in the developed countries, with several notable examples.
