International financial institutions are ready to assist with the development of all the public private partnership pilot projects (PPP). This was announced by Belarusian Economy Minister Vladimir Zinovsky during the session of the Interagency Infrastructure Coordination Council.
“We have selected seven pilot PPP projects. We have confirmations for all of them from international organizations such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Global Infrastructure Facility of the World Bank, and the International Finance Corporation regarding their readiness to assist the Belarus government with preparing the projects,” – Vladimir Zinovsky said. The Minister noted that Belarus is now in transition from public private partnership establishment to public private partnership development.
Among seven pilot projects is the reconstruction of the highway M10: the border of the Russian Federation (Selishche)-Gomel-Kobrin, 109.9-184.5km. Public-private partnership will be used to construct the Beshenkovichi hydro-electric power station (33MW-130kW/h) on the Western Dvina, Vitebsk Oblast and reconstruct the block of buildings of Grodno Hospital No.3 into the Grodno Oblast Cancer Detection Center.
Among the plans is also the construction of a waste incinerator with the heating power of up to 1.2MW and the electric capacity of up to 1.0MW in Bobruisk; a 41.35km through street in Gomel taking into account the construction of a bridge over the Sozh River and five viaducts; preschool facilities in Minsk Oblast; the first stage of the historical and cultural complex Brest near the Brest Fortress.
Experts of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe praised Belarusian pilot public-private partnership projects.
Our experts assessed the projects Belarus presented and all of them were highly praised. We will do our best to compile a program for their implementation,” stressed Chairman of the PPP Business Advisory Board of the UNECE James Stewart.
Chief of the PPP program at the UNECE Geoffrey Hamilton noted that over the past two years Belarus has made great headway in public-private partnership development. “I believe that if you continue working in this direction, you may become a PPP leader in the East-European region,” he said.
According to James Stewart, one of Belarus' best achievements in the PPP area has been the drafting of the law on public-private partnership which will allow the implementation of infrastructure projects.
“The publication of the first national infrastructure plan for 2016-2030 is an important result of our efforts. The plan represents the first attempt to define the country's common needs for infrastructure and to assess the shortage of financial resources,” explained Vladimir Zinovsky. In his opinion, the Economy Ministry could use a dedicated public private partnership department. “I believe that colleagues from the Finance Ministry should also think about setting up a dedicated structure as part of their ministry,” he said.
First Deputy Economy Minister Alexander Zaborovsky noted that the Economy Ministry estimates the country's need for infrastructure investments for the period till 2030 at $60 billion.
“Our key task is to combine state budget resources, private sector resources, and borrowed resources of major international institutions. The infrastructure package is well-balanced. Today we see that half of the required resources can be obtained from the state budget while the rest can come from private businesses. Showing a window of opportunity to the private sector is the main task of the infrastructure plan,” the official stated.
Public private partnership is viewed as a model for cooperation between the state and the private sector in a way that allows implementing important social projects through reliance on innovations, capital, and resources of private businesses without putting too much stress on the state budget. In general terms the private partner is supposed to create and service an infrastructure object for a period of time specified by the contract (10-20 years usually) in exchange for fixed payments allocated by the state budget. After the contract expires, the state (a municipal government agency) takes over the asset.
The Interagency Infrastructure Coordination Council was established in May 2014. It is in charge of developing proposals for enabling legal, economic, and informational conditions conducive to the attraction of private capital, including foreign capital, for the sake of implementing infrastructure development projects using public private partnership principles. The Council is a collegial body meant to deal with long-term infrastructure planning (10-15 years). The Council's work is supposed to determine the priority of implementing infrastructure projects while keeping them compliant with requirements of the country for rational government spending in addition to securing maximum economic, social, and ecological benefits for the nation.
Under the materials of BelTA