Minister Bui Quang Vinh and the Lord Mayor of the City of London discuss about PPP
11/11/2014 08:56
(MPI Portal) – On October 7th 2014, Minister Bui Quang Vinh had a meeting with Ms. Alderman Fiona Woolf, Lord Mayor of the City of London and her accompanying delegation to discuss about PPP of Vietnam. Attending the meeting, there were Mr. Giles Lever, the United Kingdom Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary in Vietnam and the experts, leaders of British companies and corporations.
Welcoming the Lord Mayor of the City of London and the delegation working in Vietnam, Minister Bui Quang Vinh appreciated the supports and contributions of the UK in the previous time, the two sides had a close cooperation, gained positive results for socio – economic development of Vietnam on establishing policy framework, economic institution and ODA of the UK Government and investment of British enterprises into Vietnam. In 2013, Mr. Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister established Office of Tony Blair at the Ministry of Planning and Investment in order to support the MPI in particular and Vietnam Government in general in reforming economic institution, SOEs, PPP, strengthening attraction of FDI …
Photo: Duc Trung (MPI Portal)
The Minister said that PPP is rather new field in Vietnam. For many years, Vietnam has built infrastructure mainly based on state budget which is limited as compared to its strong development requirement, causing the obstacles to Vietnamese infrastructure, obstructing the development. The MPI has been learning experience from international community and proposing regulations of reform on public investment in order to reach more transparency in investment and facilitate for private sector to invest in infrastructural construction in Vietnam. Therefore, issuing Decree on PPP is urgent demand in this actual context to attract international and domestic investors, enterprises investing into infrastructure of Vietnam.
Ms. Alderman Fiona Woolf, Lord Mayor of the City of London.
Photo: Duc Trung (MPI Portal)
Speaking at the meeting, Ms. Alderman Fiona Woolf said that the City of London always supports the MPI on development policy, infrastructure and socio – economic issues. The world is facing many difficulties on infrastructure while international community cannot fund for all projects or countries, especially after banking crisis, so PPP model is attracting attention and being applied widely. In which, Vietnamese PPP now needs coordination and sharing experience of the experts, international community and applying in conformity with Vietnamese situation.
Regarding PPP legal framework of Vietnam, Mr. Stanley Boots, international consultant said that by 2020, Vietnam will need about US$ 17 billion per year for infrastructural construction, 50% of which is from investment of private sector, equaling US$ 8.5 billion per year. Meanwhile its PPP is facing many difficulties such as the complex legislation framework, inconsistent approach on project development, which requires the consensus of Ministries, agencies and strengthening knowledge of PPP model. Therefore, the MPI's commitment to improve PPP application capacity since 2008; Decision No. 71/2010/QD-TTg on promulgating the regulations to govern pilot public private partnerships issued by the Prime Minister in 2010; reforming organizational structure taken place in 2011 – 2012 to be commensurate with the capital of project development;
editing basically Decision No. 71 in 2013, causing the introduction of a new Decree on PPP in the coming time… have proved the efforts of Vietnam Government in general and the MPI in particular on enhancing the knowledge and deployment capacity of PPP model.
As can be seen, Decree on PPP with thorough research and investment and being expected to be approved by the Government in the coming time will be a comprehensive legal document and consistent with current legislation, and will be able to resolve the issues related to the loans and demands of investors. Advantagesof the Decree are wide application range, covering many fields; defining clearly process of implementing PPP projects; investment decision based on feasibility research towards PPP; flexible contract structure; suggesting possibility to assist in setling down financial gap such as supporting construction cost, service payment; determining the rights of the lender; developing state's support programs flexibly according to the time period…
As for Vietnamese potential projects, Mr. Le Van Tang, Director General of Public Procurement Agency said that according to statistics, there are 298 projects proposed by the ministries, agencies and localities with US$ 46,775 billion of total investment capital, in which 5 projects was approved by the Prime Minister. Investment fields of proposed PPP projects include traffic (90 projects), environment (44 projects), agriculture (39 projects), water supply (35 projects), economic zone infrastructure (18 projects), energy (7 projects)…
Speaking at the end of meeting, Minister Bui Quang Vinh evaluated that the City of London is a big centre with many experiences on mobilization and use of fund, especially by PPP. Therefore, the Minister desired to receive more investment from British enterprises into Vietnam, as well as the supports of Britain Government generally and the City of London particularly for Vietnam to use this model effectively and significantly contribute to Vietnam's development process in the coming time./.
Nguyen Huong
MPI Portal
MPI Portal