MIHAJLOVIC: State to change Law on PPP and concessions

(Zorana Mihajlovic)

The state is preparing changes of the Law on public and private partnerships (PPP) and concessions in order to speed up implementation of the projects, the minister of construction, traffic and infrastructure, Zorana Mihajlovic, said.

- It is in the interest of the state to use as much as possible PPP as the project funding model in different field both at the republic and local level since Serbia cannot get into debts anymore – the minister said to journalists in the pause at the meeting on public and private partnership on waste management but she did not want to specify when the law will be changed.

She outlined that the process of PPP implementation has been pretty long for all the projects, especially in energy and environ meal protection field, stating that as of the moment of initiative for PPP until a decision, it took two to two and a half years.

- Since 2011, when the law was adopted, the governmental expert and consulting commission approved 16 projects of PPP, totaling EUR 140 m- she said.

The minister outlined that the main problem is the lack of information on importance of PPP as funding model and that in local self-governance a few people were trained for these kinds of jobs and there is few initiatives of the heads in towns and municipalities to enter into business with private sector which provides long-term results.

The minister announced more intensive work of the state on promotion of PPP and options for additional people training in local self-governances.