It is on this date in 2009 the Bank of England first cut interest rates to 0.5 per cent.

It has remained at this historic low since then, in spite of inflation rising far above the Bank’s 2 per cent target – something that was attributed to global factors.

This has left savers who simply leave their money in cash deposit accounts rather than investing in a situation of negative ‘real’ returns.

F&C Investments’ co-head of multi-manager Rob Burdett says it is an investment that enables investors to outperform inflation with minimum exposure to the issues that have caused global market pandemonium in recent years. “It is a good time to look around for different types of investments that can give some protection against inflation. Infrastructure currently fits that bill,” he says.

There are a number of ways to invest in the infrastructure story, but for the average medium to long-term investor the best way is through funds.

Giles Frost, director of INPP, says: “We are talking about quite a big universe here and it is important to work out what the areas within that are. Broadly speaking there are two sources of being paid – directly by the government in the country you are working in, say if you have built a school, or the other where you rely on revenues from the asset to get paid – toll roads, for example.

“You tend to find you get wholly different sets of investors looking at different asset classes.”

Governments across the world have committed to investing in infrastructure. India’s government, for example, has pledged to build new highways, airports and ports at an estimated cost of $1trn (£657bn) which will be raised with assistance from public-private partnerships.

Edward Bland, director and head of research at Duncan Lawrie Private Bank, says: “The Indian government, at long last, appears to be taking steps to cut some of the red tape and investors can take heart that further long pending reforms to stimulate the economy now stand a better chance of being implemented. In 2012 there was a surge in manufacturing and a boost to industrial output, the latter coming from a revival in infrastructure investment.”

There are some potential headwinds that could derail these plans, according to Mr Bland. He explains that in 2014 India faces a general election and this may “incentivise infighting and stall developments”. He adds: “While not losing faith in India’s enormous growth and long-term potential, we believe valuations in China have reached historically low levels and do not properly discount the pick-up in GDP growth rate and corporate earnings expectations.

The transition to new leadership has gone smoothly, providing more certainty, and it promises more impetus to measures to support domestic consumption such as basic healthcare, and the acceleration of urban and infrastructure investment.”

In September 2012 China approved plans for a Rmb1trn (£105.6bn) investment in the country’s infrastructure which includes railway development, highway construction, waterway projects and waste water treatment plants.

For investors, however, Mr Frost has a word of warning. “Obviously it stands to reason that infrastructure opportunities in India or China are very different to those in the UK and within the UK you will find opportunities some of which will have higher risks,” he says.

His fund invests in government-backed projects in the UK, Australia, Canada and Germany, which Mr Frost says is attractive to those investors in the ‘lower-risk’ pool.

“[The fund is] generally limited to what you might call the top tier of OECD countries,” he says. “Projects with government backing have not been affected like those without it because they are, in some respect, dislocated from the ups and downs of the economic cycle.

“There are some gargantuan amounts of money being pledged by central governments, not just in the UK, to stimulate the economy.”

Closer to home, an estimated £310bn is expected to be spent on infrastructure projects in the UK. However, the Ernst and Young ITEM Club report suggests that in reality the infrastructure spending in the UK has halved to roughly £27bn in the past four years. The report further suggested that a hike in spending of £14bn would result in a 0.5 per cent increase in the UK’s economic output.

Andrew Goodwin, senior economic adviser to Ernst & Young ITEM, says: “The key to this policy is finding projects for which all the planning and logistics have already been completed, and where all that is missing is the funding to put the shovel in the ground.”

The opportunities in the infrastructure sector are evident as investment from both governments and private-public partnerships increases. For investors this opens up an interesting alternative to the plain vanilla equity and bond funds – particularly when it comes to adding an element of inflation-proofing to a portfolio.