Photo: Courtesy of Aecom

Hong Kong’s XRL costs $8.6 billion.

Photo: Courtesy of Parsons Brinckerhoff

The list of Asian projects includes the expansion and modernization of the Indira Gandhi Airport.

“Of the 20 most promising markets, 15 are in the Far East,” says Andrew McNaughton, COO of London-based Balfour Beatty.

The region’s lengthy list of major infrastructure initiatives includes the $8.6-billion, 26-kilometer-long Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link (XRL), which includes a major terminus in West Kowloon; Singapore’s massive three-tunnel Woodsville Interchange, a $20 million to $30 million project that will provide a seamless connection for four key arterial roadways; and the expansion and modernization of New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, which includes a new 2.8-mile runway and a new terminal that will double passenger capacity. Plans are also under way for major new public transit systems in Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Proximity to the high-revving economies of China and India is key to the region’s robustness, says George Pierson, CEO of New York City-based Parsons Brinckerhoff, which was acquired by Balfour Beatty late last year. Contractors and designers also have taken advantage of work far from home. For example, when Singapore experienced four recessions in the past two decades, “things came to a halt, so the government invested in infrastructure to get out of it,” McNaughton says. “We’re seeing the result of it now.”

Asia’s opportunities for building infrastructure stand in stark contrast to the work available in the European markets, where months of economic and political upheaval have produced an uneven construction landscape.

In the U.K., the new coalition Conservative/Liberal Democratic government has completed its five-year transportation plan, retaining major transportation programs—such as the £15.9-billion Crossrail commuter rail project, which will link Heathrow to Canary Wharf via central London—but also cutting funding for several smaller road and bridge projects. Upgrades to several of the nation’s key privately operated and maintained highways also remain in progress, including a �6.2-billion program to widen the M25 Orbital Motorway around London.

On the continent, Jens Christoffersen, senior vice president of railways, roads and airports for COWI, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark, says, “It looks as if many infrastructure agencies are trying to strike a balance between funding of new infrastructure or capacity upgrades and maintenance in order to protect capital investments.” Northern Europe appears to be faring best, with design under way on major projects such as a new 19-km Great Belt Link spanning the Baltic Sea between Denmark and Germany, a $7-billion suspension bridge featuring distinctive 254-meter-tall tapered pylons scheduled to be completed in 2020.

Perhaps hardest-hit by the global financial crisis is the Middle East, where many public and private infrastructure projects have been cancelled. But sources note there are still some infrastructure opportunities. AECOM recently won a contract to provide program management services for the $6-billion New Doha Port in Qatar, currently the world’s largest greenfield port-development project. COWI is providing design services for two major airport expansions in Oman as well as for the $3.7-billion, 32-km-long Subiya Causeway in Kuwait.

Though pre-recession price pressures on materials and labor have yet to materialize, firms are keeping a close eye on regional and nation-specific trends. “Prices are dominated by the price of steel,” says Elliot G. “Lee” Sandler, group chief executive of AECOM’s global transportation practice. “As long as they remain reasonably stable, it’s not an issue.”

On the other hand, McNaughton says that with labor costs in Hong Kong and Singapore on the rise, commodities will soon follow. “Slowly, inflation is coming back,” he says.

So too are the world’s other infrastructure markets, though the pace of recovery in 2011 and beyond is expected to vary. “The areas that are good now will remain good,” Sandler says.

“With the interconnectivity of the global market, it’s hard to see how one market can have 7% to 8% growth and others stay flat,” Pierson says. “How fast a recovery happens is the question mark.”