Amending the PPP Investment Law will remove bottlenecks for BT projects

The Department of Planning and Investment of Ho Chi Minh City believes that the proposed amendments to the Draft Law on PPP Investment, if approved, will remove many obstacles for BT projects.

On the afternoon of September 11, in Ho Chi Minh City, the Ministry of Planning and Investment held a conference to collect comments on the Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Planning, the Law on Investment, the Law on Investment under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, and the Law on Bidding.

The content that has received the most attention from localities is to include in the Draft the continued application of BT contracts with cash payment and land fund payment in the direction of comprehensively innovating the implementation and payment methods for investors to overcome the maximum shortcomings and difficulties in implementing this type of contract such as: the total investment must be accurately determined, avoiding inflated project value; bidding must be organized to select investors; the payment mechanism for investors must be specifically and transparently determined right from the project establishment stage.

Representative of the Ministry of Planning and Investment presented new points on investment under BT contracts in the draft amendments to the Law on PPP Investment - Photo: Le Toan

The draft also clarifies the procedures for using public investment capital to pay investors in case of compensation or early termination of contracts. It also adds sources of payment capital to share risks with PPP project enterprises, including: medium-term and annual public investment plan reserves; and increases annual state budget revenue for development investment expenditure.

The Draft also provides regulations to completely resolve difficulties and obstacles for transitional BOT and BT projects. In particular, it allows the application of the PPP Law in cases where contracts are signed before the PPP Law takes effect and there are no regulations to adjust issues arising during project implementation.

At the same time, the Draft also specifically stipulates how to handle BT project contracts with contents that are not in accordance with the provisions of law at the time of signing the contract based on the conclusions of state inspection and audit agencies to ensure the final handling of transitional BT projects, contributing to clearing the backlog of land resources in these projects.

With the regulations set forth in the Draft, Mr. Quach Ngoc Tuan, Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment of Ho Chi Minh City, strongly agrees with these contents and believes that if approved by the National Assembly, it will remove many obstacles encountered in the implementation of BT projects.

Because in reality, Ho Chi Minh City has many BT projects that have been stuck for many years and have not been resolved. Among them, we must mention the Project to solve flooding caused by tides in Ho Chi Minh City area taking into account climate change factors, phase I, with an investment of nearly 10,000 billion VND.

This project is stuck in paying land fund to investors, leading to the project stopping construction from 2020 until now, the payment has not been resolved for investors to complete the project.

The project to solve tidal flooding in Ho Chi Minh City area takes into account climate change factors, phase I has stopped construction since 2020 until now due to unpaid BT land fund - Photo: TN

In addition, Ho Chi Minh City also has 2.7 km of Ring Road 2 invested in the form of BT, which has been congested since 2027 and has not yet paid the investor.

Similarly, the Phan Dinh Phung Stadium Project also encountered difficulties in paying land funds to investors. Recently, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee decided to end investment under the BT form to switch to the public investment form.

From the difficulties that Ho Chi Minh City is facing, Mr. Quach Ngoc Tuan suggested that for BT contracts paid in land, it should be stipulated that only when there is land fund can the investor be selected to avoid the case of selecting the investor but there is no land to pay.

At the same time, it is necessary to specify the time to determine land price as public property to pay for BT projects. If not clearly specified, investors and authorities will have different views leading to failure to implement.

In addition, Mr. Tuan also recommended that during the implementation of the BT project, if there is an increase in project costs that is not the investor's fault, it is necessary to clearly stipulate how to pay for these additional costs, the type of assets to be paid, and the time of payment?

Source: https://baodautu.vn/sua-luat-dau-tu-ppp-se-thao-go-diem-nghen-cho-du-an-bt-d224694.html