New Zealand Builds Infrastructure Less Efficiently Than Other Countries – Scoop

Monday, 20 December 2021, 10:29 amPress Release: New Zealand Infrastructure Commission

New Te Waihanga research shows New Zealand gets lessvalue from its infrastructure spending than most otherhigh-income countries.

"We spend about the same amountas other wealthy countries, but weve found we could getmore value from what we spend," says New ZealandInfrastructure Commission, Te Waihanga Director of EconomicsPeter Nunns.

"To solve our infrastructure challenges,well need to build more efficiently as well as buildingmore."

The new research has found that in recentdecades our network infrastructure spending has been aboutaverage for a high-income country, and that what we spend iton is similar as well. However, the value that we get forwhat we spend is not so good - our efficiency ratingof building infrastructure lies in the bottom 10% ofhigh-income countries.

The research builds on the draftNew Zealand Infrastructure Strategy developed by TeWaihanga, which highlights key factors that underpin qualityinfrastructure investment: good decision-making, an enablingplanning system, and the raw materials and workforce neededto build the infrastructure. Te Waihanga are already awareof problems in our infrastructure consenting system and theavailability of raw materials.

"The costs to consentand build infrastructure are rising. Weve recentlypublished other research showing that consenting costs forinfrastructure projects are increasing, and availability ofkey materials like aggregates is increasingly constrained,"Nunns says. "This makes it difficult to deliverinfrastructure efficiently. We need to address these typesof systemic issues to get good value from infrastructureinvestment."

"Successive Governments have invested ininfrastructure, but they could have got more from what theyspent. To do better, we need to better understand costperformance and look for areas we can improve."

Readthe new infrastructure efficiency research: ResearchInsights December2021.

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New Zealand Builds Infrastructure Less Efficiently Than Other Countries - Scoop