MILAN, October 29, 2019 – Australia is positioning itself at the forefront of innovative and sustainable infrastructure as it increases investments and establishes partnerships with a variety of players in the growing sector, according to McKinsey & Co, highlighting the role that innovation has played in the country’s growth. It has also been a key factor in Salini Impregilo’s success in Australia, with its projects lauded as models to emulate. 

In a new report entitled “Australia’s Infrastructure Innovation Imperative”, the consultancy says the planning, financing and delivery of infrastructure by Australia in recent decades also showed the potential of further development in the country. “Today, the country faces new challenges as population growth, urbanisation, and technology disruptions create the need for a step-change in infrastructure prioritisation, design, and productivity.”

Australia is among the most advanced economies in terms of effective collaboration between the public and private sectors for the delivery of transport, energy, and social infrastructure, it says. In 2017, it spent $906 per capita on transport infrastructure. Among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) it is second only to Norway, a market recently entered by Salini Impregilo with the €388 million contract to upgrade a rail line.

McKinsey estimates Australia will be increasing its investments in public works such as utilities, transport and social infrastructure as its cities grow, from $18 billion in 2016 to $53 billion by 2020 in terms of aggregate investment in projects each greater than $34 million.

As Australia’s investments in infrastructure having grown by more than 30% a year, the country faces demand for extra resources to build more public works. In order to keep growing, the country must rethink the way it has developed infrastructure, from the study of the potential transformative impact of technology to the trends in demand for infrastructure. McKinsey says the experience of construction companies is essential in a sector that requires vision at the technological level, the ability to plan and build megaprojects from the design stage to its full completion. This entails incorporating processes, technology and skills in commercial partnerships.

In Perth, Salini Impregilo is building the Forrestfield-Airport Link, a light rail transit line that will link the eastern suburbs to the airport and the Central Business District. In Sydney, it completed the skytrain bridge, the signature feature of the Sydney Metro Northwest, the largest public transport project in the country and the biggest in the city since the construction of the Harbour Bridge a century earlier. The first fully automated line in the country, it received a number of awards, including for the skytrain bridge. One came from the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) for being among the best projects in terms of sustainability.