Wednesday 7 October 2009

Public Private Partnerships for Low Income Housing Development in Cantho City, Vietnam

According to assessment of World Bank (2006), Vietnam has made remarkable progress in GDP and poverty reduction over the past decade. A critical factor in this success is significant government emphasis on investment, particularly in infrastructure. Since 1997, infrastructure investment has highly occupied GDP growth, boosting the economy’s productivity. Vietnam, together with Thailand and China, has been the leading countries in terms of infrastructure investment in East Asian region (ADB et al., 2006a).

As for the future investment, some sector plans and forecasts (transport sector, electricity sector, telecommunications sector, and water and sanitation sector) future annual infrastructure investment assuming to 11.4% of GDP (World Bank, 2006). At provincial level, public private financing schemes have been found to assist in urban development carried out by local government (Kyvelou & Karaiskou, 2006). Provincial governments have more jurisdictions in choosing their own projects within a given budget envelop (ADB et al., 2006b). Some local governments have created specialist government investment funds with significant roles in infrastructure financing.

Private investment in infrastructure at provincial level has been noticeable growth as the result of decentralization policy of central government in recent years. There are a number of projects funded successfully by local governments as Hanoi, Binhduong, Dongnai, and Hochiminh including two main areas privatization of existing assets and green-field investment in new assets.

In Cantho city, there are no actual model BOT, BTO, BT implemented under city’s government up till now. Cantho City has to face with pressing needs in developing infrastructure in general while state budget is limited. Government of Cantho City is seeking for the possible models with participation of private sector to reduce the burden of state budget and offer the housing for employees with affordable price. Therefore, Mr. Tran Quang Ninh made a case study and considered the following problems:

1) Limit of using public private partnership approach at local government level may cause difficulties for infrastructure development;
2) Lack of reference to public private partnerships models applied in other countries to create the efficient delivery infrastructure system;
3) Lack of public private partnerships model is to support as the referential procurement in development low income housing in Cantho city, Vietnam.

Mr. Nihn made a case study which main objectives are to: (1) develop public private partnerships models for low income housing development in Cantho city, Vietnam; (2) evaluate the applicability of developed models, and 3) propose the applicable public private partnerships model and its implementation guidelines for low income housing development in Cantho city, Vietnam.

His study revealed that in the context, the price of land is extremely expensive compared with average income of the majority of the people, which makes housing always bother them and also, a big concern for Vietnamese government now. Three local governments were appointed to implement the pilot projects and only Binhduong province’s project proposal was approved by the Prime Minister.

Public private partnerships approach has been applied for developing infrastructure in Vietnam in recent years. There are many projects implemented successfully under PPP, especially power sector and transport sector. According to experts (ADB, 2005), public private partnership approach has much potential to be applied widely through many fields in Vietnam.

Mr. Nihn proposed 3 PPP Models, its strength and weakness for low income housing in Cantho city. See table below:



And finally, the PPPs structure of applicable model he proposed can seen below:


His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

ABSTRACT

Public private partnerships approach is considered efficient tool for infrastructure development in Vietnam recently. There are many implemented successfully under this approach, especially power sector and transport sector. The objective of this study is to apply the public private partnerships approach into low income housing development in Cantho city, Vietnam. The Vietnam legal framework, existing Public private partnerships models in various countries, and case study in Binhduong are investigated to develop the possible Public private partnerships models. And then, interviews stakeholders are conducted to evaluate applicability of developed models. The study proposes the applicable model to develop low income housing in Cantho city under public private partnerships concept. The proposed model is adequate to the real context of Cantho city. And this model possesses some improvements in comparison with the case study’s model, especially in financial aspect, it reduces around 24% state budget under the same assumptions of case study’s project. The proposed model either satisfies the low income people due to adequate price of service or reduces spending state budget and also uses more efficient subsidies through private participations and an adequate subsidy mechanism. The prominent performances of proposed model are specifically showed in two aspects sources of funds and government. That leads the applicability of proposed model.

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