Australian roundtable notes ECA support crucial to transition

(Infrastructue Investor, Sydney, 19 May 2023) Australia’s infrastructure sector has centred on privatisations for decades. But a rapidly changing world calls for more greenfield development. Australia’s transition prospects have recently been boosted by the country’s most significant emissions reduction legislation in more than a decade. Total emissions from major industrial facilities must now be cut and not just offset. This is deemed critical to meeting Australia’s net-zero pledge, which will require a 45% reduction in emissions by 2030. Danny Latham, head of Australia and New Zealand at Igneo Infrastructure Partners notes: “We need something like $400 billion of investment in renewable generation and associated transmission links to get anywhere near 2050 net-zero targets". Aaron Ross of rhw ANZ Banking Group notes that one way the Australian government could better support technologies associated with the transition is through export credit. “The Danish and Korean export credit agencies EKF, KEXIM and K-Sure have been providing significant support to help develop wind and battery manufacturing projects, for example,” he says. “We have seen similar things in Taiwan, Southeast Asia and Europe generally. There are opportunities for Australia too, in terms of accessing the Export Credit Agency market as an additional source of capital to fund the transition.”

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