On the afternoon of 6.6, the National Assembly Standing Committee commented on the acquisition, explanation and revision of the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Bidding Law; Law on Investment by the method of public -private partnership; Customs Law; Law on Export and Import Tax; Investment Law; Law on Public Investment; Law on management and use of public assets.
One of the notable contents is the amendment and supplementation of a number of articles of the Law on Investment under the public-private partnership (PPP Law).
Regarding the sharing mechanism of increasing and decreasing revenue, Deputy Minister of Finance Tran Quoc Phuong said that the Government has revised the draft in Article 51 and Article 82 in the direction of the ratio framework, namely a decrease from 75-90% and an increase of 110-125% for the competent authority to decide in the project formulation and negotiate with investors, ensure flexibility.
For PPP projects in science and technology, the regulation does not require investors to share the increase in revenue in the first 3 years after the time of operation and business.
Allowing the application of a 100% sharing of the difference in reduction between actual revenue and revenue in the financial plan in the same period if the actual revenue is lower is an outstanding policy to promote public-private cooperation in this field to institutionalize Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW.
Another content is to handle the problem of reducing revenue of BOT projects in the road sector signed before January 1, 2021
The Deputy Minister of Finance said that it is necessary to supplement the provisions of the PPP Law on the mechanism for handling revenue reduction risks for BOT projects with contracts signed before the PPP Law takes effect to implement the consistent, synchronous, and thoroughly handle the problems.
According to Government statistics, there are 11 transport BOT projects with reduced revenue. These projects are all ineffective projects, the State must be responsible for handling most of the problems due to objective reasons or due to the fault of the State agency, not the fault of the investor.
The Government has directed the Ministry of Transport (now the Ministry of Construction) to organize negotiations with investors and lenders to reduce interest and reduce profits.
However, in reality, some other transit BOT projects may have similar problems.
Regarding this issue, the National Assembly has repeatedly requested the Government to soon find a solution.
In Notice No. 127-TB/VPTW dated February 6, 2025 of the Central Office on the conclusion of key leaders at the meeting in February 2025, the competent authority also requested the Government to urgently develop policies to completely remove obstacles in a number of transport BOT projects.
Therefore, the Government proposes not to issue a separate Resolution but to supplement the provisions of the PPP Law on general handling mechanisms for not only the project with qualitative problems but also the whole project with similar problems but not yet qualified.
The Government will specify in detail the method of determining the sharing ratio, the order and procedures for implementing the revenue reduction sharing mechanism, ensuring fairness and transparency, not causing price increases, public service fees, not increasing fee collection time, harmonizing the interests of people, businesses and the State.
