Investors involved in projects under the public-private partnership (PPP) must have equity accounting for at least 20% of total investment capital, according to a recently released decree of the Government.

A section of HCMC-Long Thanh-Dau Giay Expressway. As the building of expressways needs large amounts of capital, there should be an attractive legal corridor to lure investors

Decree 63/2018 issued early this month to replace Decree 15/2015 will come into force on June 19, 2018, with some radical revisions, one of which is an equity requirement of 20% instead of 15%. However, this rule only applies to projects worth less than VND1.5 trillion or roughly US$65 million.

With projects whose total investments are over VND1.5 trillion, the ratio of equity cannot be lower than 20% of the VND1.5-trillion amount and is not smaller than 10% of the remaining amount. 

The involvement of the State in PPP projects includes capital contributed by the State, payments for investors, land, office space, infrastructure handed over to investors, business rights transferred to investors in case of build-transfer (BT) contracts, capital to assist construction of supporting works, compensation, site clearance and resettlement.

Meanwhile, Decree 15/2015 limits State investments in PPP projects to State capital, government bonds, municipal bonds, official development assistance (ODA) capital, and concessional loans from international donors.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the old decree restricts the participation of other legal public capital sources, which hence does not make it attractive to investors.

Regarding project transfers, the new decree provides tighter conditions than the old one. In particular, Decree 15/2015 allows an investor to transfer partial or entire rights and obligations in a certain project to the lender or another investor, even when the project is being implemented or is already finished.

Meanwhile, under Decree 63/2018, the investor can transfer partial or entire rights and duties in the project to the lender or another investor after construction work is done or when the project is in operation.

Regarding investment incentives, investors are given preferential corporate income tax, and get land use fees exempted or reduced while implementing the project.

In addition, legal assets of investors are not nationalized or seized with administrative measures.

In case of asset seizure for security purposes, investors will get compensation.

SGT