• Piers for the Luang Prabang railway bridge, a section of the China-Laos Railway built by the China Railway Group Ltd., stand under construction near Luang Prabang, Laos, last October. China's 'Belt and Road' initiative plans to connect Southeast Asian countries with the southwest region of Yunnan through a series of high-speed railways. | BLOOMBERG
    Piers for the Luang Prabang railway bridge, a section of the China-Laos Railway built by the China Railway Group Ltd., stand under construction near Luang Prabang, Laos, last October. China's "Belt and Road" initiative plans to connect Southeast Asian countries with the southwest region of Yunnan through a series of high-speed railways. | BLOOMBERG

  • Bloomberg

SINGAPORE – Japan is still winning the Southeast Asia infrastructure race against China, with pending projects worth almost one and a half times its rival, according to the latest data from Fitch Solutions.

Japanese-backed projects in the region’s six biggest economies — Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — are valued at $367 billion, the figures show. China’s tally is $255 billion.

The figures underline both the rampant need for infrastructure development in Southeast Asia, as well as Japan’s dominance over China, despite President Xi Jinping’s push to spend on railways and ports via his signature “Belt and Road” initiative. The Asian Development Bank has estimated that Southeast Asia’s economies will need $210 billion a year in infrastructure investment from 2016 to 2030, just to keep up the momentum in economic growth.

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