PPP Concession Contract/Guidelines: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

As an approach of providing public infrastructure and services, Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) has drawn growing attention all over the world. However, there are a number of problems associated with the implementation of the PPP contracts. PPP concession contract/guidelines from World Bank, UK, Australia and China are selected and compared in this study in terms of principles, structures, features of content and the completeness. This is followed by the deep analysis of failure cases of PPP projects. This paper aims to explore the relationship between the effectiveness and completeness of PPP concession contract/guidelines. This is achieved by means of comparing the effectiveness of solving real problems based on the most frequent market risks. Results show that the contract from UK which is the most completed pays more attention on market demand and market revenue. The guidelines of World Bank emphasize more on responding to the price variation risk. On contrary, guidelines of Australia and China both are guiding only which seems not sufficient to solve real problems. Therefore, the higher the completeness, the higher the effectiveness of PPP concession contract/guidelines is. These findings provide practical advice for practitioners to improve the PPP concession contract terms.