Press centre News

On 23 April 2009, Moscow hosted a joint round-table by the Vnesheconombank’s PPP Centre and Vegas Lex Law Firm on regional infrastructure development. The experts at the event included representatives of the Vnesheconombank’s PPP Centre, the RF Ministry for Economic Development, St. Petersburg Government, the State Duma of the RF Federal Assembly and Vegas Lex experts. The round-table drew together more than 70 representatives of the national and municipal authorities of the RF constituent entities, federal ministries and departments and top managers of major regional businesses interested in infrastructure projects with a public-private focus (PPP).

The round-table was moderated by Albert Yeganyan, Managing Partner of Vegas Lex. In his opening remark, Mr. Yeganyan noted: “Regional infrastructure development is not a new topic and is, essentially, a permanent issue discussed at various levels. This is due to several reasons. First, regions fairly need renovating the infrastructure that’s been headily falling into decay in every sector. Second, financial crisis has deprived the state and businesses of their traditional investment instruments and aggravated the need for developing new ways of cooperation between them. The primary purpose of today’s meeting is to identify the problems, show the ways to resolve them, as well as the new opportunities in terms of Public Private Partnership”.

The report on “The Objectives of the Anti-Crisis Programme of the RF Government in terms of Regional Infrastructure Development” was presented by Artyem Shadrin, Deputy Director, Strategic Management (Programmes) and Budgeting Department, RF Ministry for Economic Development. In his opinion, “in the present context of the objectively increased investment risks, the mechanisms of public-private financing, including instruments designed to increase energy efficiency of businesses, to reduce costs of the public sector entities and that incurred by the housing and community sector, can provide for one of the most attractive and promising investment opportunities”.

The ways to arrange for extra-budgetary funding of the regional infrastructure development were disclosed by Denis Zavyalov, Chief Expert, PPP Department of the Investment and Strategic Project Committee of St. Petersburg. Maxim Chernigovskiy,Director of the Analytical Department with Vegas Lex, delivered a speech on involving development institutes for the purpose of financing regional programmes.

Alexander Bazhenov, Director of the PPP Centre with the State Corporation “Vnesheconombank” briefed on the anti-crisis solutions that coordinate efforts by the governments, private investors and regional level development institutes.

Development prospects of regional legislation on PPP were analyzed by Yevgeniy Glumov, Head of the PPP Project Group with Vegas Lex. “Developing regional infrastructure and attracting private investment for regional purposes in the midst of liquidity crisis requires combined efforts of the state/region and private business. To initiate and develop PPP projects, it is required that the conflict between the federal and regional regulations be eliminated and a full-scale legal framework created at the regional and even municipal levels”, said Mr. Glumov.

Development objectives for the regional laws as needed to build up regional infrastructure by extra-budgetary funding were discussed by a panel attended by Khafiz Salikhov, Deputy of the RF State Duma, member of the State Duma’s Committee for Economic Policy and Entrepreneurship, Chairman of the PPP Development Subcommittee.

Roman Martusevich, Head of the Housing and Public Infrastructure Group, Infrastructure Department, SC “Vnesheconombank”, delivered a report on PPP projects involving project financing mechanisms, while Ioanna Gromyko, Head of the PPP Projects Group with Vegas Lex, analyzed practical aspects of the PPP delivery models.