A national infrastructure plan will be developed in Belarus to include the objects that require private capital injections. The information was released by Leo McKenna, Co-Chair of the United Nations' Executive Board on PPP, the UK government's appointed representative to the European Investment Bank's European PPP Expertise Centre (EPEC), a director of the global board of the International Project Finance Association (IPFA), at the first session of the Interagency Infrastructure Coordination Council on 28 May. Leo McKenna said that over the last few years a number of positive changes in the development of the public private partnership mechanism in Belarus have happened. Now the Belarus government works in tight cooperation with partners from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe to develop the national infrastructure plan that will list the main infrastructure objects that require private capital injections. The Belarusian center for public private partnership led by Dmitry Berezovsky will coordinate the development of the national infrastructure plan. Asked what prevents Belarus from accelerating the assimilation of the public private partnership mechanism, the expert stressed that Belarus faces the same hindrances and barriers that the countries where public private partnership develops face. In his opinion, raising the information level and the awareness of government officials is the most important effort in this direction. In turn, Rumen Dobrinsky, manager of the UNDP project meant to enhance the national potential for applying public private partnership mechanisms in the Republic of Belarus on the part of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, said that once the country has developed the infrastructure plan, two pilot projects will be selected within the framework of the UNDP project. UNDP specialists and experts will take part in implementing the pilot projects. He said he hopes that work on these projects will begin by the end of 2015 but he was not ready to say what direction these projects will focus on. Touraj Etezady, Managing Director of the Swiss confederation Marti Invest AG, said that a lot has been done in Belarus recently to introduce PPP mechanisms. “Today it is important to determine Belarus' needs with regard to infrastructure and select the PPP projects that can be really implemented in the country. I hope that in the near future the first few PPP projects will be implemented with the success rates of the UK, Switzerland, and other countries where the process has already begun,” said the expert. He added that a Belarusian delegation is expected to visit Switzerland in July 2014 to get familiar with the experience of project implementation.
Written by belta.by
