top of page
Writer's pictureHoài Đức Trần

The "finance" question again "clogged" the North - South Expressway project



TranHoaiDuc.com: The Government has conduct a long-run to implement the hight priority project N-S Expressway but finally it shows that No money to carry out the projects and must switch to puplic investment. If they found that the PPP model can not work why the Government had choosen the public investment as from beginning to save time and cost? So the switch of the investment model not due to Covid 19? Lets see how the National Assembly question the Gorvernment on 20 May Meeting. TranHoaiDuc.com would like to introduce an article of dantri.com.vn which annalyze the difficulties of the Projects.



Although the completion of pre-qualification for 8 component projects of the North-South Expressway under the BOT method, the Ministry of Transport has to apply for the transfer of the investment method because it cannot solve the loan capital for the project ...


Preparing documents for the Standing Committee of the National Assembly to consider in the 45th meeting on changing the mode of investment for some north-south sections of the East, the National Assembly's Economic Committee raised many practical issues " headache, difficult to remove ”of the project.


The Government wants to submit a proposal to the National Assembly to approve the policy of adjusting the mode of investment for 8 component projects on the North-South expressway from BOT to public investment model.


Where to raise "money" for 8 projects?


The latest information on the policy of changing the mode of project investment, a few days ago, Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Ngoc Dong said, based on the proposal of the ministries, branches, on 9/4, Chinh The Government issued Resolution 41 to unify the policy of converting eight North-South expressway projects from the mode of calling for BOT investment to public investment.


Earlier, the investment policy for these 8 projects was passed by the National Assembly with Resolution 52.


About the actual progress of implementing this Resolution 52, the Deputy Minister of Transport said that 8 pre-qualification projects were basically pre-registered. The ministry hopes to have qualified investors to participate.


The Ministry of Transport has also implemented all the technical designs, approved the techniques and estimates of public-private partnerships, and the bidding documents are also promoting steps.


In addition, the Ministry also prepared the contents related to the adjustment of investment policy to report to the National Assembly (expected at the 9th session, which will start from May 20, 2020). Expected that the National Assembly will approve this adjustment proposal, the Ministry of Transport has considered reviewing the technical design of the project, because each form of investment has different calculations.


While waiting for the National Assembly to press the button, according to Deputy Minister Nguyen Ngoc Dong, the project is still carried out in two ways, both public investment and public-private partnership (PPP).


Explaining the proposal to adjust the investment policy of 8 component projects of this North-South Expressway, the Ministry of Transport called for difficulties in domestic loans.


In fact, right from 2017, during the period of reporting to the National Assembly to consider the decision on investment policy of the project, the Government has identified "the ability to mobilize capital from domestic credit institutions is difficult".


To solve this problem, the Government has directed the State Bank of Vietnam to coordinate with the concerned ministries and branches in studying solutions to ensure credit supply for the project.


The Ministry of Transport still restated that the State Bank, on February 17, 2020 presented many difficult problems in arrangement of loan for the projects such as: large scale BOT and BT projects, long loan period ... while capital sources of credit institutions are mainly short-term, leading to difficulties in balancing capital sources.


The State Bank also explained that in order to ensure the stability of monetary policy, the credit law has stipulated a roadmap to gradually reduce the proportion of short-term capital sources for medium and long-term loans, which must be complied with.


In addition, the difficulties and obstacles related to BOT and BT projects have not been completely solved and state-owned commercial banks have not been able to raise their capital in time. Accordingly, the State Bank said that it is difficult for credit institutions to consider and finance new projects.


With this information, the Ministry of Transport could not "remove" concerns about funding for eight projects.


“From the actual implementation of a number of transport BOT projects in the past, it has been shown that, under the conditions of risk sharing mechanisms (especially revenue risks) have not been applied, the mobilization of credit capital to implement investment is very difficult ”- the report of the Ministry of Transport and the National Assembly's Economic Committee wrote.


Many evidences are given, even projects with large transport demand that are financially feasible (such as Trung Luong - My Thuan expressway) are very difficult to mobilize credit capital.


And in fact, contrary to the Ministry of Transport's expectations, about the capacity of domestic investors, through a preliminary selection of projects shows that businesses with financial strength have not paid attention. While investors participating in the North - South Expressway prequalification are mainly contractors, good construction capacity but financial capacity is not strong, the Ministry forecasts, mobilizing credit capital to deploy. Declaring investment will be difficult.


Progress risk when making BOT


The progress of the project has also worried the Ministry. According to the report, for 7 component projects with investors passing prequalification will continue to implement the bidding step. In case of successful bidding, the investor is expected to be selected as early as the end of October and early November 2020, negotiating to sign a contract in December 2020, starting construction from the beginning. in 2021.


In order to ensure the progress of implementation at the request of the National Assembly, the Government stipulates that the investor violates the contract in the event that after 6 months of failing to sign a credit contract with a bank or credit institution with enough capital borrowing to implement the project. At that time, the authorized state agency will confiscate the contract performance guarantee and the contract expires.


Thus, the case of selecting investors in 2020 cannot confirm that PPP projects will be implemented in 2021. In case investors cannot mobilize credit capital, the Ministry Transport must cancel the contract and the Government reports to related authorities for consideration and decision.


In a new report to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly, Chairman of the Economic Committee Vu Hong Thanh suggested that it is necessary to quickly solve the bottlenecks in special infrastructure construction projects, in order to reduce administrative procedures. main and accelerate the projects, especially the national key projects, including the North-South highway ...

19 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page