ADBI Dean Speaks at CCG about Infrastructure Project Financing in Asia

Infrastructure construction is a key element in the Belt and Road Initiative. Dr. Yoshino proposed to attract private financing to Infrastructure Investment by injecting spillover tax revenues. Taking the STAR highway project in the Philippines for instance, he proved the spillover effect of the infrastructure building investment can effectively increase tax revenue, and part of the profits can be shared with the investors. Using the railway project in Uzbekistan, he emphasized that connectivity can expand the spillover effect, especially the connectivity of the markets.

Based on the studies on the infrastructure investment in 43 countries, he noted the need to invest not only hard infrastructure but also soft infrastructure that include labour training and community development to truly benefit the people living along the belt and road and achieve connectivity.

The public-private partnerships (PPP) is also one of the most debatable topics at the B&R Forum. During his speech, Dr. Yoshino addressed the issue on how to evaluate SMEs employing big data while promoting PPP in the Belt and Road Initiative. He believes SMEs in Asia have significantly contributed to GDP growth and job creation. However, financing has been always a problem to them. Even Toyota and Honda have encountered such difficulty. One of the reasons is that banks and private investors can hardly evaluate SMEs’ credit due to the lack of data. Therefore, he suggested that a credit risk database should be established with a variety of indicators to evaluate SMEs’ performance and assist with financing decision making.

In addition, Dr. Yoshino commented on the issues including the power of the currencies in Asian countries, free trade policies and the cooperation among multilateral developing banks in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Dr. Yoshino obtained his PhD from Johns Hopkins University (United States) in 1979 where his thesis supervisor was Sir Alan Walters, economic adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Dr. Yoshino has been a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States) and a visiting professor at various universities including the University of New South Wales (Australia), Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (France), and University of Gothenburg (Sweden). He has also been an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and an economics professor at Keio University.

Dr. Yoshino’s professional career includes membership in numerous government committees. He was named Director of the Japan Financial Services Agency’s (FSA) Financial Research Center (FSA Institute) in 2004 and is now Chief Advisor. He was appointed as Chair of the Financial Planning Standards Board in 2007. He has served as Chairperson of the Japanese Ministry of Finance’s Council on Foreign Exchange as well as its Fiscal System Council (Fiscal Investment and Loan Program Section). Additionally, he has been a Board Member of the Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan and President of the Financial System Council of the Government of Japan.

He was nominated for inclusion in Who’s Who in the World for 2009 and 2013, and was named one of the Top 100 Educators in 2009. He obtained honorary doctorates from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) in 2004 and Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) in 2013. He also received the Fukuzawa Award in 2013 for his contribution to research on economic policy.