ADB, AFD to Finance $30M to Help Vietnam Boost PPP Projects: Official

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the French Development Agency (AFD) will provide a $30 million loan to help Vietnam set up a fund to boost development of public-private partnership (PPP) projects, said ADB Country Director for Vietnam Eric Sidgwick. ADB assisted Vietnam in building Decree 15/2015/ND-CP on PPPs, effective in April 2015, to improve the PPP framework, Mr. Sidgwick said, adding that the assistances are expected to help attract more investors to the country. He also noted that the largest bottleneck impeding PPP investments in Vietnam is the challenge of bringing viable projects to market. The Vietnamese government needs to boost preparation of prioritized PPP projects, which will create a premise for following projects. Still, Hogan Lovells, a global legal services firm, commented that this decree is still placing obstructions on foreign investors wishing to join PPP projects in Vietnam. Vietnam has only been able to pilot the PPP model in a number of projects due to the lack of regulations. The decree is expected to attract more private firms, especially foreigners to invest in infrastructure projects. A number of investors from South Korea, Japan and Qatar want to invest in public-private partnership (PPP) projects but the lack of PPP list is among obstacles discouraging them in these projects in Vietnam, said Pham Hoang Ngan from the Ministry of Planning and Investment. (baodautu.vn Jan 8)