CRI听力:Opportunities and Challenges Both Exist for Private Investors in PPP Projects: Experts

7 Chinese provinces announced last week that 287 PPP projects collectively worth around 940 billion yuan, or 148 billion U.S. dollars, will be open to private investors.

Those projects include municipal works, highways, rail, airports, water conservation and energy projects.

The announcement was made during a PPP promotion teleconference organized by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in cooperation with the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce.

Zhang Yong, deputy head of the NDRC, says the partnerships could help improve structural reform of investment and financing, energize private investment, while improving public products and services.

"We'll make great efforts to promote the PPP mode. For the past three quarters of this year, private investment in the fields of infrastructure and public utilities, where private companies seldom invested in before, has increased by around 27% compared to the same period of last year. The acceleration of such investment is 16.6% higher than the whole investment."

However, in some of the PPP projects, private enterprises still lack enough participation compared to their state-owned counterparts.

Wang Qinmin, head of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, says private investors still face a series of problems and challenges.

"Some private enterprises still lack confidence and willingness to invest due to the decrease of their own space for gaining profits, while others don't know which areas they could invest in. The environment for PPP projects investment still needs improvement."

He adds that some of the private investors lack enough understanding towards relevant policies, which might bring negative effects to their investments.

The NDRC will next hold more project promotion meetings in many different types so as to attract more private enterprises to participate in investing in PPP projects.

For CRI, I'm Xie Cheng.