A new World Bank Group report says investors from private sectors eye East Asia where multi-billion dollar projects are fueling stronger investment in infrastructure in developing countries.

The East Asia and Pacific region received more than one-third of total global investment, overtaking for the first time Latin America and the Caribbeans, which saw investment commitments decline slightly, according to reports by the Half Yearly Update of the Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) Database released on October 20.

The 132 projects in developing countries saw a total investment of 36.7 billion US dollars, an increase of 24 percent from 2016.

Although the growth of larger-sized projects is contributing to improved figures for the first half of 2017, investment levels remain 15 percent lower than the half-year averages of the past five years, reported the Half Yearly Update of the Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) Database. Excluding the mega-projects, average project size increased from 156 million US dollars in 2016 to 171 million US dollars in 2017.

“Private sector investors are committing increased investment in infrastructure projects, and that is a welcome development given the tremendous need for more infrastructure in developing countries. The World Bank Group continues to encourage more private investment in infrastructure, which remains a small part of total infrastructure spending. Since 1990, the private sector has invested only 1.6 trillion US dollars overall in infrastructure projects in developing countries,” said Cledan Mandri-Perrott, Head of the Infrastructure, PPPs, and Guarantees Group at the World Bank Hub for Infrastructure and Urban Development in Singapore and leader of the report team.

Senior finance officials from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) members also joined the international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Hanoi, Vietnam on October 19,  and reviewed the mechanisms to facilitate private sector engaging in long-term infrastructure investment, which they put as one of the policy priorities in 2017.

While 17 of the 33 destination countries for private sector infrastructure investment commitments closed only one project each, a few countries signed many deals, with China and India topping the list. China approved 36 projects and India 22 ventures.