Strengthening Public-Private Partnership for Infrastructure Investment in Viet Nam

The “Strengthening Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for Infrastructure Investment in Viet Nam” workshop held from 3-7 November 2008, was organized by ADBI in close collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and Investment of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, the Public Policy Training Program (PPTP), the Asian Development Bank Viet Nam Resident Mission (ADB VRM). The workshop welcomed more than 40 mid- to senior-level national and sub-national government officials as participants to the PPTP training facilities in Hanoi.

The five day workshop was developed for government officials in Viet Nam engaged in infrastructure policy making and infrastructure project design and implementation. The workshop program was designed to improve the participating officials' understanding of the benefits and challenges of greater private sector participation in, and financing of, infrastructure projects; the priority policy actions required to strengthen the national enabling environment and legislative frameworks for PPPs; and the critical design elements needed to ensure the ‘bankability' of PPP projects to enable the development of a pipeline of PPP infrastructure projects for Viet Nam.

In his welcome remarks, Ayumi Konishi, Country Director of ADB VRM, indicated that to increase industrial efficiency Viet Nam needs to make priority investments in financial intermediation, human capital and skills development, and infrastructure, and increased private sector participation in infrastructure investment, primarily through PPPs is an important opportunity to addressing the financing, technical skills, and management gaps.

Day 1 of the program, Infrastructure Development and Financing, incorporated sessions that focused on reviewing the important linkages between infrastructure, economic growth, and poverty reduction; and on ensuring a better understanding of the infrastructure financing challenges faced by Viet Nam and other countries across the region. During Day 2 of the program, Infrastructure Investment – Addressing the Financing Gap, the sessions reviewed the experiences of Viet Nam and other countries across the region regarding attracting foreign direct and domestic investment to the infrastructure sectors. The presentations this day also brought in the private sectors ‘investors' perspective of PPP bankability, risk considerations, and private sector financing of infrastructure projects

Infrastructure Investment – Public-Private Partnerships was the topic for Day 3 and sessions first addressed the question ‘What are PPPs?' and then explored what opportunities and advantages PPPs offer, the modalities that have evolved, and what key issues need to be addressed for a project to be ‘bankable'. Day 4 of the program was titled Bankable Deals: What Does It Take? These sessions profiled selected case studies from the transportation, energy, and water sectors in Viet Nam and the Asia-Pacific Region to determine the points of negotiation which made the projects bankable, brought deals to a successful conclusion, or which resulted in a breakdown of the deal-making process. Sessions during Day 5, entitled Policy Reform to Mitigate Constraints and Enable Acceleration of PPPs, aided participants in drawing priority action plans to strengthen private participation in physical infrastructure in Viet Nam.

With the collaboration of the USAID/Viet Nam Competitiveness Initiative, the National Council for Public Private Partnerships (USA), and other public and private sector organizations, the workshop brought together a team of global PPP experts and advisors. The team of PPP resource persons detailed PPP opportunities; profiled national, regional and global experiences and lessons learned; reviewed PPP concepts and approaches; and explored risk allocation and other critical issues for ensuring project bankability. Through highly interactive discussion panels and group sessions, workshop participants were provided with pragmatic insight to critical bankability issues for PPP infrastructure projects and priority policy issues that need to be addressed to enable the strengthening of the PPP enabling environment and the development of a pipeline of bankable infrastructure projects for Viet Nam. During these sessions, delegations representing each of three infrastructure sectors (power, transport, and water) identified a number of priority policy issues that will be profiled with their respective government agencies and used to support the development and design of ADB's Country Strategy and Plan for Viet Nam.