Best Practices in PPP Financing Latin America - e-Institute - World ...

INTRODUCTION TO THE CONFERENCE
José Luis Irigoyen, Director of the Transport, Water,
Information and Communication Technologies Department
and Head of the Experts Team on PPPs of WB, began his
introduction by thanking the support of the Ministry of
Economy and Finance of the Spain, the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya
Argentaria (BBVA) and the Public & Private Infrastructure
Advising Fund (PPIAF).
He mentioned that unlike what is usually expected, the global
financial crisis forced many countries to look at infrastructure
investments as a way to promote rapid growth, and in doing
so, to overcome the crisis, even through fiscal packages.
In the international sphere, within the G20 framework,
one of the areas where progress should be reviewed, in
order to introduce new support steps in the PPP agenda, is
infrastructure. Other areas include safety measures in food,
which is associated to the climate change agenda. In this
context, Irigoyen pointed out that the role played by PPPs
will be very important to attract not only additional financial
resources, but also to generate management capacity in these
sectors.
Concerning this matter and the response of the WB during
the crisis, it should be noted that loans for the infrastructure
sector reached US $ 26 billion, which is quite a record for
this organization. In projects related to PPPs, loans are near
US $162 million. Thus we cannot keep on considering PPPs
as a marginal program, as just one more option, but as a
significant way to contract and execute investment programs
to provide infrastructure and services.
One of the main lessons learned is that the countries that
work more efficiently in PPPs are those that have established
objectives in investment programs through PPPs. By doing
so, through project programs and not disassociated projects,
investors feel more comfortable, as they achieve greater
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