The RF Ministry of Construction, Housing and Utilities will enhance its control of the public-private partnership in the sphere of utilities in all regions.
The Deputy Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities and Chief Housing Supervisor Andrei Chibis spoke on this at the All-Russia real-time conference on April 25th. According to him, the key task of the utilities development strategy is the updating of communal infrastructure. The investment needed for the coming 5 years is about 500 bln roubles annually. One of the principal tools of attracting investment is concession agreements.
The first results of the private investors’ work have proven its efficiency: heat supply system breakdowns have decreased by 47% and water disposal system breakdowns by 21% for a year and a half in the regions where concessions have been being implemented.
The Russian Ministry of Construction has initiated the controls in the regions lagging behind the road map and will take measures to make them work more actively.
All conditions for the attraction of privately owned capital in the utilities sphere have been created. Projects being implemented in 35 regions of Russia demonstrate this. There is the experience of large-scale agreements in Volgograd and there are smaller projects, as in the town of Langepas in the Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district.
“I am sure that the absence of investors’ interest in the utilities sphere in some regions is the result of bad work by specific management teams”, Andrei Chibis said.
As Construction.ru was told by the Ministry’s press office, by April 22nd 738 concession agreements had been concluded in the utilities sphere. Investment duties in 2015 are 10 times as much as in 2014.
