Whichever infrastructure you look at – transportation, communication and power links, water and environmental sustainability – in every area the needs are growing, the need to remove bottlenecks to economic growth and social development are growing. 33. Traditionally, it has been a sector that has been financed by governments and banks. Governments will be constrained in the future, across the region. Although banks currently have ample liquidity, they too will over time become more constrained. So that combination of governments and banks isn’t going to be able to cope with the rapid growth in financing for infrastructure in the future. •  This is why institutional investors – insurers, pension funds and other long term investors – have become very important. For insurers, infrastructure is an attractive asset class. It is attractive as a potential diversifier of assets, and has the potential to provide reliable inflation-linked returns over time, and with low correlation to other conventional assets. 34. But we need quality data for infrastructure to take off as an asset class for long term investors. We need quality data for reliable performance benchmarks to be constructed, and to allow long term investors to perform asset allocation on a reasonably reliable basis. That quality data doesn’t yet exist but it is being put together by the EDHEC Infrastructure Institute in Singapore. By the end of this year they expect to have usable performance benchmarks, including for unlisted infrastructure debt and equity.
In this regard, we are naturally supporting efforts by the French Treasury and insurers to improve the prudential treatment of long-term equity investments already during the 2018 review. On a topical note, I would add that it is crucial for supervisors to apply all prudential requirements with equal rigour. The string of failures by insurers doing business on the French market under the FPS, particularly in construction insurance, is a reminder of the importance of this. The ACPR is obviously working hard to deal with this crisis, which is affecting tens of thousands of French policyholders. But the requisite convergence of supervisory practices also needs to become a reality very soon. I know that Gabriel Bernardino and EIOPA are making this a priority. Finally, let me be clear: it is unreasonable to apply the new IFRS17 accounting framework right now, given the current state of the discussions. Aside from the complexities of creating a European governance framework for these standards, there is also an obvious issue of timing, and fortunately, the IASB appears to be reopening discussions on this. Implementing IFRS17, which will be costly and complex, will follow on from implementation of Solvency 2, a process that has kept insurers very busy. Beyond the question of timetabling, there are major substantive issues. We want an agreement on identifying groups of loss-making contracts. As it stands, the draft is unworkable. We also want to see completion of the discussions on the treatment of reinsurance contracts held.