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12 December 2008 |
On 11 December, 2008, a conference entitled "Possibilities for investment growth and current instruments for public private partnership in the Regions” organised by the Law Firm Vegas Lex, was held in Moscow. Over 100 representatives of business and the authorities took part in the event. The Conference’s experts were representatives of Vnesheconombank, the Regional Policy Institute, the Federal Agency for management of special economic zones and specialists from the Vegas Lex PPP practice. The purpose of the Conference was to discuss the possibilities for appropriate development of public-private partnership in the regions. The audience was offered PPP instruments appropriate for the conditions of the economic crisis for discussion. Within the scope of the Conference, Vegas Lex experts gave an overview of the new opportunities at the federal level, regulatory restrictions and spheres of investment growth in the regions using PPP instruments, as well as practical measures of legislative support for development of PPP mechanisms in the Russian economy. The moderator of the discussion was Albert Eganyan, Managing Partner of Vegas Lex. In his welcoming speech, he noted that the current view of PPP that has taken shape on the market was not, in his opinion, a correct one. “Many people believe that the possible list of instruments for partnership between business and the state is limited to the Investment Fund and the mega-projects supported by it. In fact, however, there exist a whole series of other “working” PPP instruments that are applied quite actively in different regions, but that, against the background of the major projects approved by the Investment Fund, have unfortunately remained unremarked”. Regarding the crisis, Mr. Eganyan noted: “In the sphere of the crisis conditions of the next two years, it is obvious that the Russian economy’s need for modernisation of all types of infrastructure (at the federal, regional and municipal levels, roads, schools and healthcare institutions) cannot but increase.” A special place within the framework of the event was allotted to presentation of the book “Development of public private partnership in the regions of the Russian Federation” by the leading specialist in the sphere of PPP projects, Viktor Kabashkin, D.Sc. (Economics) in collaboration with Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Belgorod Region, Alexander Levchenko and Deputy Director of the Vnesheconombank PPP Centre, Vladimir Sidorov. The book was published with the support of GK Vnesheconombank, Vegas Lex, Deloitte & Touche CIS and MC Svetograd. The topic of the procedure for selecting regional projects for financing by the Investment Fund of the Russian Federation was covered by Ioanna Gromyko, head of the Vegas Lex PPP Project Group. In her speech, Ms. Gromyko spoke about the formatting of a regional project application to the Investment Fund and about the criteria by which regional investment projects are selected. Senior expert of the Regional Policy Institute Oleg Lysak analysed the key results of participation by constituent entities of the Russian Federation in Investment Fund projects in 2008. Mr. Lysak dwelt in detail on the existing regional quotas in the Investment Fund of the Russian Federation, spoke about the problems of structuring projects and gave practical recommendations in this respect. Alexander Bazhenov, Director of the PPP Centre of the State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Trade, covered the possibilities for investment development of the regions with the assistance of GK Vnesheconombank and described the main interaction instruments and schemes. An analysis of current experience of applying PPP instruments for cutting costs and encouraging regional investment was presented to the Conference participants by Evgeniy Glumov, Head of the Vegas Lex PPP-Project Support Group. During the second penal of the Conference, the experts considered individual PPP instruments using specific case studies. In his speech entitled “Special Economic Zones – an effective PPP instrument”, Kirill Yankov, Deputy Head of the Federal Agency for Management of Special Economic Zones, demonstrated the geographical location of Russian Special Economic Zones and analysed certain of their performance indicators for 2008. In addition, Mr. Yankov described all the four types of Special Economic Zone in Russia: industrial-production, engineering-commissioning, tourist-recreational and port special economic zones. The discussion of the infrastructure sphere was supported by Dovran Garagozov, Senior Attorney of the Vegas Lex Department for Infrastructure and Transport Projects, who spoke on “Corporations for development of regions and comprehensive development of territories as an investment instrument: the pros and cons”. The concluding speech was given to the participants by Maxim Chernigovskiy, Director of the Vegas Lex Analytical Department. He spoke about concessions and concession schemes, the opportunities for and problems of implementing regional infrastructure projects and dwelt in detail on life-cycle, service and long-term investment contracts. Alexander Turskiy, President of the ZABRA Initiative Fund, supplemented Mr. Chernigvoskiy’s speech with interesting case-studies: construction of a public highway/reconstruction of roads in a big city; transfer of healthcare institutions into trust management; construction and operation of a school; reconstruction of a railway station in a regional centre; modernization of heat supply systems on the territory of a region. |
