It is widely believed that infrastructure in general and transport infrastructure in particular plays a critical role in socio-economic development. This is especially true in a globalized world in which economic activities and the mobility of people and goods are closely connected. In this regard, Vietnam’s Socio-Economic Development Strategy (SEDS) for the period of 2011-2020 emphasized one of three ‘breakthrough areas’ to promote a sustainable economy that is infrastructure development. In fact, Vietnam Government had approved an ambitious plan to create a network of 2,500 km expressway nationwide. This is not to mention an increasing demand for construction of other transport sectors such as airway, railway, urban metro rail system, and so forth. Yet many of urgently needed and large-scale infrastructure projects was far delayed or failed to begin due to insufficient funding from state budget. Consequently, there is a call for collaboration between private and public authorities to bridge infrastructure gap.
Given the fact that the state budget could hardly accommodate half of the required fund for public infrastructure investment, Vietnam Government officially issued a Decree on Public – Private Partnership (PPP) in February 2015 to open public sector to private investors. However, Vietnam’s very first PPP pilot project in toll road was indeed unable to follow its original scheme despite being given great support from the Government. This failure could be attributed to varied reasons, notably being unclear legal framework and lack of mutual understanding between the Public and the Private. While the former could be dealt with by providing additional guidelines, the latter is more likely to be ‘the majority of the iceberg’ that is invisible and under the water yet the most challenging to resolve.
Since Vietnam is in its early stage of PPP adoption, there are few thorough reports and studies on those projects. Therefore, it is of great importance for the nation to critically review existing PPP-oriented projects to get a timely lesson as well as achieve its SEDS. In line with this purpose, my website attempts to be a sharing community on Public – Private Partnerships in Vietnam. Readers could find in the website general information of the status quo of PPP in Vietnam and some international experience/stories. There would be some comparative analysis of PPP practice in Vietnam and other countries.
Since the website is positioned to be a sharing community, your comments and topic suggestions are highly appreciated. You can either email us via p3invietnam@gmail.com or comment directly in the page.
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PPP in Vietnam 