Arcadis is pleased to announce that we will be speaking at the 5th Annual Malaysia Rail event on the 15th August. Our South East Asia Business Advisory leader, Girish Ramachandran will be discussing how stakeholders can maximize their opportunities around HSR investment to create the biggest socio-economic impact in the Asia region – session titled ‘Creation of a Socio-Economic Development Strategy to maximize the economic benefits arising from the HSR project’.
The overall impact of High Speed Rail (HSR) for Asia is still in its infancy and as many governments and business leaders consider the full scope of opportunities – one area that requires further clarity is the link between current project costs and the benefit within the rail corridors. For instance, the HSR link between Singapore and Malaysia; the actual cost projections are still yet to be provided by the authorities- whilst analysts estimation suggests a potential cost injection of around $15 billion*. This has created a platform for debate: is there scope now to establish clear cost projections so that Asia can maximize the socio-economic opportunities from HSR infrastructure?
As HSR investment increases, there is a clear need for Asean countries to address the socio -economics of HSR in order to move overall cost benefits of nations from negative to positive.
Commenting on his attendance, Girish said: ‘We are delighted to be involved with such a high profile event covering one of the region’s most anticipated projects. We fully support the direction taken by Asia’s Governments to help improve infrastructure and economic development with the building of HSR. It’s very exciting, and more specifically exactly what Malaysia needs to step up the future of its productivity’.
Expanding on this point, Girish also commented that ‘I recently debated the use of Socio-Economic Modelling (SEM)in project forecasting across built assets. The benefit of this approach is what I believe to be a key component of all builds, especially HSR and the fact it’s a mega project a multibillion-dollar investment’.
Arcadis is delighted to have Girish share his HSR expertise and perspectives to identify what the next steps should be for governments, contractors, investors and other key stakeholders to help underpin forecasting, budgeting and economic strategy to develop Malaysia’s infrastructure future.
