Using these two relationships, we can roughly estimate how much additional investment in electricity generation and distribution is needed first to bring consumption to a level consistent with each country's current level of

development – as measured by per capita GDP or urbanization – and secondly to provide the power needed to support per capita incomes expected in 2019 or the level of urbanization forecast for 2020. We cannot measure the dollar value of investment needed, but we can estimate the gap between actual and “required” electricity generation in terms of years of investment required.

So, for example, in Indonesia power consumption per capita in 2009 was 590kWh. Given its per capita GDP (in current PPP dollars) of USD4,085 we estimate that power consumption “should be” 700kWh. In the last ten years, Indonesia has added 237kWh per person in electricity generation. Hence, at that rate, it would take another five years to raise electricity consumption to the “required” level. Of course, assuming per capita GDP has risen, even that level would still not suffice. On the assumption that per capita GDP grows over the following ten years at the rate it has over the past ten years it would take 35 years of investment at the current rate at which capacity is being added, to generate sufficient electricity. The final two columns do the same calculations using urbanization as the parameter that identifies “required” electricity consumption. Clearly, the recent rate of addition of electricity generation is insufficient to keep pace with the likely growth in demand.

Eoin Treacy's view Standards of governance in most Asian countries have been on an upward trajectory for a number of decades. This has in no small part contributed to the region's impressive growth statistics. It also increases the possibility that the power generation capacity required to facilitate additional growth will be built.

China has played such a large role in commodity demand growth over the last decade that it is easy to forget that urbanisation is a global theme. Infrastructure development in countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America remains a substantial growth story.