Ed Crooks, Managing Director with the Global Infrastructure and Projects Group, was interviewed on BBC World News

February 13, 2009

Ed Crooks, Managing Director with the Global Infrastructure and Projects Group with KPMG Corporate Finance, was interviewed on BBC Worlds News regarding the US$789 billion stimulus plan being implemented by the Obama Administration, part of which has been allocated to improve America's infrastructure.

“It’s a good start. We are very excited to see the Congress take this action and President Obama’s strong support of the stimulus package," said Crooks. "Is it enough to satisfy the investment requirements in our critical strategic infrastructure needs? Probably not, but we will see how these investments play out over time. The key focus of this bill is to stimulate the economy.”

“America has deferred infrastructure investments for decades and recent estimates put the requirements to bring our infrastructure up to snuff at over US$2 trillion over the next five years. So this is a great step in the right direction, but the focus is on quick projects that can be “shovel-ready”. In other words, projects that can be initiated in 120 days or less and be completed within 2 years. So that means these are not by in large the long-term major investments in our infrastructure that we need to do, but it’s a wonderful start and we’re very excited," said Crooks.

“Clearly this is first step in a long process of updating and expanding America’s infrastructure. Our business community is very focused on this, state and local government leaders are focused on it," Crooks continued, "The stimulus package is an important first step to again stimulate the economy and get the ball rolling. But clearly there needs to be a sustainable long-term approach to meeting these strategic infrastructure needs”

Regarding what the business community wants from infrastructure, Crooks states, “KPMG Corporate Finance, working with the Economist Intelligence Unit, just completed a major survey of business leaders globally and the results are quite compelling. The business community is very focused on infrastructure. Over 90 percent of the respondents to this survey identified infrastructure availability and adequacy as one of the key decision makers in where they locate their new operations, where they build their factories, where they expand their operations, so clearly there is a tremendous multiplier effect in our economy to wise infrastructure investments.”  

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