Del 8 al 11 de junio se celebró en Montreal la 21ª Edición del Fórum Económico Internacional de las Américas, al que asistieron más de 3.800 personalidades procedentes de todo el mundo y un total de 190 ponentes.

La misión de este evento es realzar los conocimientos y la conciencia sobre los aspectos relacionados con la globalización económica, haciendo hincapié en la relación entre América y el resto de continentes.

La Conferencia tuvo como temática principal “Building a Balanced Economy”, desde donde se trató de explicar la necesidad surgida de cambiar los modelos de negocio que predominaban antes de la crisis del 2008.
Alguno de los objetivos de la Conferencia son entre otros, fomentar el intercambio de información, promover la libre discusión sobre los principales problemas económicos actuales o facilitar reuniones entre líderes mundiales para incentivar el discurso internacional.

Javier Pérez Fortea, CEO de Globalvia, fue invitado a asistir como speaker de la mesa principal a la Sesión Plenaria de Apertura que se celebró el día 9 de junio bajo el título “Closing the Infrastructure Gap” enfocando el tema en las infraestructuras como motor para la creación de empleos sostenibles.

En el siguiente enlace podéis consultar la ponencia de Javier Pérez Fortea al completo: https://vimeo.com/131773866

Javier compartió panel con diversas personalidades, todas referentes en sus respectivos sectores, tales como Arundhati Bhattacharya (Presienta de State Bank of India, considerada por Forbes como la mujer más influyente de Asia), Arsenio Balisacan (Director General de National Economic Development Authority de Filipinas), Fadi Selwan (Vicepresidente Ejecutivo del grupo y Presidente de Concesiones de VINCI), Pierre Gabriel Côté (Consejero Delegado de Investissement Québec) o Robert Palter (Director de Infraestructuras de Mckinsey & Company).

A la pregunta efectuada a nuestro CEO, Javier Pérez Fortea, sobre la existencia del Infrastructure Gap, respondió: «I believe there is actually no Gap between the needed infrastructure and the liquidity available to fund it. There are really three levels of Infrastructure, the existing, the required, and the one that can be financed. The difference between the first two is real, so it’s a «gap» in the sense that one is larger than the other. However, between the second and the third is where I claim there is no gap. 

The liquidity of the market today is enormous. There are institutional investors (pension funds, infra funds, etc…) wanting to enter the Infrastructure market, or expand their positions. There are large construction groups wanting to secure construction contracts for their companies, who are ready and able to invest in PPP projects all over the world. So in the end, why is it that it might seem that there is not enough money to build the much needed Infrastructure (in not only emerging economies, but also in the 1st world)? I believe that the problem which makes both ends not meet is the wrong allocation of risks.
There are four main players in this Infraestructure world, Public administrations, financial investors/ lenders, promotors / concessionaires, and the citizens (users). The first three are there to provide services to the fourth player, however if the risk allocation is not appropriate, in the end the project itself might either be built and go bankrupt, thus not providing the intended service, or might even not ever be built. Each risk should be handled by the party that has the ability to manage it. There’s no sense in «unloading» a risk that cannot, or should not be managed by a specific party, unto that such party.
For example, expropriation risks should be borne by the grantor, who is the party that can manage it. Construction, operational risk, financial closing risk, should be borne by the concessionaire. There are public administrations in some countries wanting to take over operational risk from a concessionaire without actually being able to do it themselves, so they want to let subcontracts to do the O&M of the specific project. There are infra funds investing in Brownfield assets and then building up their teams to actually run the assets. Well, forgive me for saying this, but you should let companies such as mine do this for you, because that is what we do, and we do it really well.

Infrastructure has a social component, which means that only because a given road, or mass transit system is needed to provide service to any given urban area, this doesn’t make it a sound project from the economic standpoint. In this case the public administration should bear the demand risk, and there are methods to do this, availability payments, shadow tolling, etc.

In the end, if projects keep going under because of the incorrect risk allocation, or if the investors see that the risks in a specific project are not manageable by the party to whom they have been allocated, they will look elsewhere to invest their money, and the «non-existing» gap will all of a sudden exist.

I had the chance to participate in the Preparatory meetings for the G20 Prime Ministers’ meeting in Australia last year, and out of those reunions came several recommendations which we passed on to the Prime Ministers aimed at creating a sustainable economy for the world, creating long term jobs and increasing the GDP throughout the G20 countries. One of these recommendations was to create a Global Infraestructure Hub that would amalgamate the «best practices» of the industry, and that would ensure a common legal framework, and that would prevent corruption from hampering growth.

Infrastructure projects should be defined and decided upon by technical experts not politicians. A short sighted political need should not jeopardize cities and countries (citizens in the end) for years to come.»

Javier Pérez Fortea, quien ha sido preguntado por el evento, destaca la gran oportunidad que ha supuesto para él, en representación de Globalvia, haber podido participar en un evento de este nivel y magnitud, rodeado de las principales personalidades de sectores económicos y sociales a nivel mundial.

El Evento ha sido todo un éxito de organización y la participación de Javier Pérez Fortea sin duda un reconocimiento al gran nivel internacional de Globalvia como compañía y como referente mundial en el sector de las infraestructuras.