The seventh edition of the Infrascope shows that the Dominican Republic has made significant progress in terms of public-private partnerships (PPPs) and holds a good position with respect to the regional average, ranking among the six countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with the best PPP regulation and institutionality, ahead of Costa Rica, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Brazil, Jamaica, and others.
The publication that evaluates the capacity of the region’s countries to mobilize private investment in infrastructure through PPPs ensures that the Dominican Republic is ranked number 10 out of 26 countries in the overall score of the indicators assessed by this study.
It also explains that the Dominican Republic benefits from a strong policy supporting PPPs and that this, together with the PPP law, creates a solid regulatory basis to develop and introduce efficient and sustainable systems to implement such alliances.
It emphasizes that the Government has a diverse portfolio of long-term infrastructure projects and has made public its intention to contribute to the already outstanding economic reactivation of the tourism sector, in this case, through public-private collaboration according to the provisions of the regulatory framework of Dominican PPPs.
The report points out that the Dominican Republic’s outstanding performance with respect to the informed and standardized selection of projects, in addition to the analysis and allocation of risks, are supported by solid methodological guidelines.
Infrascope notes that PPPs in the Dominican Republic have access to a wide range of financing options, including payments based on performance and sustainable financing, they also have financial support from the Government and healthy NPL ratios in the banking sector.
Progress of PPPs in the region
The Infrascope report, prepared by IDB President Mauricio Claver-Carone and Economist Impact Director for the Americas, Vaibhav Sahgal, highlights that Latin American and Caribbean countries have taken significant steps in creating enabling environments for the development of efficient and sustainable public-private partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure.
It also notes that “the regulatory and institutional foundations for PPP development are largely already established throughout the region, now the focus should be on improving project preparation, financing and risk management.”
Infrascope is a PPP evaluation tool developed every two years by Economist Impact, the analysis unit of The Economist group, and commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
In 2020, the Dominican Republic enacted Law 47-20, which regulates PPPs and the General Directorate of Public-Private Partnerships (DGAPP) was created under the National Council of Public-Private Partnerships as the highest body, in charge of evaluating and determining the relevance of public-private partnerships presented in accordance with this law.
Some indicators of the study
The infrascope report ranks the country 10th out of 26 in terms of evaluating the performance and impact of public-private partnerships and 16/26 in risk management and PPP contract monitoring.
As for the project preparation and sustainability indicator, the country is in 11th place out of 26 and in 9th place in financing, ahead of Costa Rica, Honduras, Paraguay and Jamaica.
Key challenges
Among the challenges cited by the publication is the need for PPPs to be largely aligned with key challenge areas for the region. These include, but are not limited to, the establishment of viability gap projects and funds, including environmental and social sustainability criteria in project selection, providing and protecting the intervention rights of funders, issuing guidance on the application and enforcement of force majeure clauses in PPP Contracts, and instituting mechanisms for the project.
Source:
Listín Diario
