Vietnam needs approximately 17 billion USD for infrastructure development by 2020, with half coming from the private sector.

Stanley Boots, an international lawyer specialised in infrastructure at the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), presented these figures in a dialogue on public-private partnership (PPP) between MPI Minister Bui Quang Vinh and the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman Fiona Woolf, in Hanoi on October 7.

Woolf assured Vinh that the City of London would help countries throughout the world, including Vietnam, meet infrastructure challenges. Woolf added that the city was currently working on a more sustainable model of financing with its global partners.

Since 2008, the ministry has sought ways to address the growing financial needs of infrastructure projects in Vietnam. In 2009, several public private partnership projects were launched.

Last year, the ministry updated Decision 71 to include the PPP programme, and developed PPP provisions in a draft decree recently submitted to the Prime Minister, Vinh told the Lord Mayor.

The document introduces a more comprehensive legal framework to facilitate the joint investment model, including a set of regulations to ensure international standards are met.

In the near future, up to 298 projects worth more than 982 trillion VND (46.7 billion USD) will require support from the non-State sector, both domestic and foreign, Director of the Bidding Management Department Le Van Tang said, adding that 55 projects were initiated by ministries and the rest by localities.

In the past, Vietnam has implemented infrastructure projects using the build-operate-transfer (BOT), build-transfer-operate (BTO) and build-transfer (BT) models. However, these models have their weaknesses, especially concerning the allocation of State resources.-VNA