Despite crisis, positive outlook for PPPs in Russia by Natalia Reznicenko and Filip Drapak

Many countries are experiencing a big infrastructure gap, and Russia is no exception. The Russian government is well aware of the problem, and it has announced that it will invest about US$1 trillion over the next 10 years in improving infrastructure. But how can the government raise that kind of capital? The expectation is that the private sector will contribute most of the financing though a Public Private Partnership (PPP).
While Russia does have some experience with PPPs, the track record so far has been spotty. We might mention in this regard one project that is sometimes considered to be the first PPP in Russia—the South-West Wastewater Treatment plant of St. Petersburg. The project was agreed upon by the Russian, Finnish and Swedish governments all the way back in 1986, but due to a lack of public financing the project was stopped. It was resurrected as a PPP in 2002 and formally procured as a 12-year BLT (Build-Lease-Transfer) contract.

The financial crisis has also thrown a wrench in the works. St. Petersburg has taken a lead in developing PPPs in Russia, but shaky credit markets have meant many projects have been put on hold.

The first PPP project launched by the government of St. Petersburg was a toll road called the Western High Speed Diameter (WHSD). The WHSD was enacted under the Federal Law on Concession agreements, which has been in force since 2005. Since the city government didn’t have the experience and proper skills to procure PPP projects, the WHSD met a lot of difficulties, including legal problems and issues with a feasibility study. In 2006 new regional legislation on PPPs was introduced in St. Petersburg that allowed the government to attract private sector interest and prompt PPP development. The value of the WHSD project is estimated at US$5-6 billion, which makes it difficult to procure in the current circumstances due to the high costs of capital and limited available funding. (Not to mention that the overall downturn of the economy has affected traffic forecasts.) Although a tender has passed and a bidder was chosen, the instability in financial markets has meant that the project had to be rescheduled. Investors need more time to redesign their financial models to meet the challenges of the financial crisis.


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